HRW details Rohingya massacre by Arakan Army in Myanmar

DHAKA, Bangladesh (MNTV) — Human Rights Watch released a detailed investigation into a 2024 massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, saying militants from the Arakan Army killed hundreds of civilians, burned down an entire village and continue to confine many survivors nearly two years later.

The 56-page report documents the May 2, 2024 attack on Hoyyar Siri village in Buthidaung township, where Rohingya civilians were targeted as clashes intensified between the Arakan Army and Myanmar’s military junta in western Myanmar.

Human Rights Watch said Arakan Army militants deliberately opened fire on unarmed villagers attempting to flee the area after the armed group advanced on nearby military bases. Details of the killings only began emerging more than a year later after survivors managed to escape to Bangladesh and Malaysia.

“The Arakan Army’s murder of hundreds of Rohingya civilians and the burning of their village in Rakhine State in 2024 took the armed conflict with Myanmar’s junta to a new level of depravity,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The rights group said it interviewed dozens of survivors and witnesses, verified photographs and videos, and used satellite imagery to corroborate accounts of killings, mass destruction and burning across the village.

According to the report, Arakan Army militants first opened fire on civilians leaving Hoyyar Siri, including villagers waving white flags as they attempted to seek safety.

“First, my son was hit by a bullet,” one survivor told HRW. “Then my wife and baby daughter were shot, followed by my other daughter.”

Another survivor said militants gathered villagers in a paddy field near a mosque before opening fire indiscriminately.

“Within minutes they opened fire at us randomly, without saying anything,” the woman said. “No one was spared.”

Human Rights Watch compiled a list of more than 170 villagers who were killed or remain missing after the attack, including around 90 children. The organization said the real death toll was likely significantly higher.

The report also documents widespread abuses carried out after the killings. Survivors accused fighters of looting cash and jewelry, abducting Rohingya women and girls, and torturing detainees with beatings and electric shocks.

Satellite imagery reviewed by Human Rights Watch showed extensive destruction in Hoyyar Siri after the attack, while photographs and videos verified by researchers showed human remains scattered across multiple sites in the village. Civilian clothing was visible among skeletal remains in some locations, the report said.

HRW said surviving residents were later ordered into a makeshift camp controlled by the Arakan Army, where they faced restrictions on movement, forced labor and severe shortages of food and medical care.

Some villagers who later fled to Bangladesh told researchers they were also forced to provide false testimony during a tightly controlled media visit organized by the armed group to deny responsibility for the massacre.

The Arakan Army has rejected responsibility for the killings and told HRW that its fighters only targeted military personnel or members of Rohingya armed groups.

The report comes as more than one million Rohingya refugees remain displaced across Bangladesh after fleeing decades of persecution, ethnic cleansing and military violence in Myanmar. 

Human Rights Watch said the Hoyyar Siri massacre demonstrates that Rakhine State remains unsafe for Rohingya refugees, including in areas now controlled by anti-junta armed groups rather than the Myanmar military itself.

The organization called on both the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army to end attacks on civilians, release unlawfully detained people and cooperate with independent international investigations into abuses committed in Rakhine State.