| One Rohingya man suffered a compound fracture in his leg when he was savagely beaten by Myanmar security forces. A 5-year-old girl was flung against a wall with such force that, two months later, she still can’t walk. A young woman was struck over the head with a machete and then left to die in her burning home.
Stories like these, and of mass rapes, mass killings, and mass graves, are some of the accounts being heard by a team of doctors from Physicians for Human Rights that is currently on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border to document evidence of extreme violence committed by Myanmar security forces against Rohingyas. Our colleagues have examined several men, women, and children who were shot in the back as they escaped villages that had been set aflame by their attackers. One women we spoke to said: “If we go back, they will kill us.” In this video, our director of programs, Dr. Homer Venters, talks about what he and our team are witnessing in PHR’s second trip this fall to the refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where almost 650,000 traumatized and desperate Rohingyas are sheltered. We will use the information and evidence we have gathered to draw attention to the profound suffering of the Rohingyas, to demand a response from world governments to prevent and punish the crimes being perpetrated against them, and to advocate that Rohingyas not be forced to return to areas of Myanmar where they are at risk of further persecution.
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“Shot From Behind While Fleeing” – PHR’s Dr. Homer Venters Reports from the Myanmar-Bangladesh Border
