MYANMAR – At least 50 people were killed by Myanmar soldiers in a raid on a village in Rakhine State last week, say local residents and opposition forces.  Eyewitnesses told the BBC the village was subjected to two-and-half days of terror as soldiers blindfolded and beat them up, poured burning petrol on their skin and forced some of them to drink their urine.

They were looking for supporters of the Arakan Army (AA), which has become one of the most effective ethnic fighting forces in Myanmar. Fifty-one people aged between 15 and 70 were “violently tortured and killed”, the National Unity Government (NUG), representing the ousted civilian government, said in a statement. The AA estimated the death toll to be more than 70 people.

The ruling military council, or junta, has denied the accusations, which would amount to one of the worst atrocities committed in the three year-old Myanmar civil war. “They asked the men if the AA was in this village,” one woman told the BBC. “Whatever answer they gave, whether they said AA was there or it wasn’t, or they didn’t know, the soldiers hit them.”

In just six months, the AA has swept through most of Rakhine State, forcing the military to keep retreating. It ended a ceasefire with the army last year and joined ethnic insurgents in other parts of the country in a combined operation aimed at overthrowing the junta which seized power in February 2021. “I saw with my own eyes my husband being taken away in a military vehicle. My son was separated from both of us, and I don’t know where he is. Now I don’t know if my son and husband are alive or dead,” the woman told the BBC. (BBC)…[+]