Bleeding Rakhine: At least 43,700 Rohingya parents are missing
The ASEAN Parliamentary for Human Rights (APHR) Human Rights Report said 43,000 parents of Rohingya children have been missing since the Myanmar Army's pre-planned and structured violence in Rakhine in August 2017. The report was published based on a survey conducted by the APHR, a group of members of the ASEAN-based coalition of ASEAN countries, surveys on Rohingyas fleeing Bangladesh. According to the report, the US magazine Time reported that the results of the survey prove that the number of deaths in Rakhine is much higher than the number that the Myanmar authorities claimed. Myanmar authorities have admitted that only 400 people have been killed in Rakhine since August. That's just ridiculous to the world community.
In the last week of January 2018, APHR investigated the refugee camps in Bangladesh. According to official information released after the search, 28,300 Rohingya children who fled to Bangladesh have lost at least one of their parents. Besides, 7,700 children in the camp lost both of their parents. And the sum of missing parents of Rohingya children is 43,700.
"The parents of these Rohingya children are not with them," Oren Samet, research and advocacy director at APHR, told the US-based Times magazine. Because they are either killed or are victims of murder, or there is no trace of where they are. The Times reported that 2,680 Rohingya children were separated from their parents in temporary refugee camps in Bangladesh. However, the data from the APHR survey shows that the number is much higher.
There are no reliable statistics on the number of victims of the killings in Rakhine in the Myanmar Army's operation. The United Nations has termed the persecution ‘Genocide’. The first month of the killing, 6,700 Rohingyas were killed said, Doctors Without Borders, a voluntary organization.
Matthew Smith, an official with Fortify Rights, another volunteer organization, said the number of missing parents revealing the scale of atrocities in Rakhine. He said the information they have been able to record from the witnesses and survivors of the victims’ shows that a large number of parents are missing or killed.
They have found many children whose parents were murdered, said Charles Santiago, president of APHR and member of the Malaysian Parliament. The passersby or neighbours rescued them from the burning house and brought them to the Rohingya camp in Cox's Bazar.
In February 2018, the US news agency AP reported that five mass graves were found in Rakhine. Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of the Asia region of the US human rights organization Human Rights Watch, said the Myanmar government's claim of 400 casualties is the worst farce. At least 671,000 Rohingyas who have fled Bangladesh since August 25 have been hit by bullets. Many are carrying evidence of perverted sexual violence. Sixty per cent of the refugees who have fled are children, many of whom do not have parents. The description of the children proved that they have witnessed the murder of their parents. The army and locals cordoned the house and set it on fire.