GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR

COUNTDOWN TO ANNIHILATION: GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR
ISCI’s findings indicate that the Rohingya have been systematically weakened – physically, psychologically
and collectively – to such an extent that their agency and purposefulness has effectively been
destroyed. This weakening has been orchestrated through planned illness, hunger, loss of livelihood
and the removal of basic human rights. Compounding the physical and psychological weakening that
illness, hunger and humiliation bring, the Rohingya suffer sporadic and unpunished violence, torture and
killings. As a result the Rohingya have effectively been deprived of the capacity to organise politically, to
campaign, protest or otherwise resist the policies of the State.
Conditions of detention
Rohingya living in the ghetto, camps and villages in and around Sittwe are subjected to wretched living
conditions; characterised by overcrowding, hunger, illness and despair. There are virtually no opportunities
to engage in livelihood activities, and IDPs are almost wholly reliant on monthly aid deliveries from
the World Food Programme (WFP). Without work and education people mill around without purpose or
direction. Some are reduced to begging from other IDPs and the few internationals that gain access to the
camps. Depression is apparent in all the Rohingya camps and there are reportedly high levels of domestic
violence. Women, who in the past would have been occupied with visits to market, cooking, cleaning,
socialising and caring for children, lie on the floors of their cramped huts in the middle of the day, a sense
of hopelessness pervading the atmosphere.
Stripped of agency and human dignity, the Rohingya are living in broken communities where social
cohesion no longer exists. Interviewees explained to ISCI that they are experiencing humiliation, abuse,
and harassment at the hands of the authorities and the arbitrarily appointed camp leaders. As a result,
lives and relationships are fractured and shrouded in despair. One interviewee in the Ohn Daw Gyi West
camp explained that despite the existence of a nearby school, neither he nor his children had the energy
or motivation to walk the 15 minutes from their camp shelters. 260 An activist reported accounts of sexual
abuse and of men raping their own daughters: ‘when you put human beings in a situation where only
animals can survive, they become animals. They lose all sense of human values.’ 261
The Rohingya are living an existence so wretched that tens of thousands have been forced to flee. One
woman, after describing the misery of life for her community in the camp, pleaded through tears, if the
international community can’t help us, please drop a bomb on us and kill all of us. 262
260 Interviewed on 24 January 2015.
261 Interview with political activist in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 4 February 2015.
262 Interview conducted in a Sittwe Rohingya IDP camp on 10 December 2014.
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