Resource information
Summary:
"In June 2012, deadly sectarian violence erupted in western Burma’s Arakan State between
ethnic Arakan Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims (as well as non-Rohingya Muslims). The
violence broke out after reports circulated that on May 28 an Arakan woman was raped and
killed in the town of Ramri allegedly by three Muslim men. Details of the crime were
circulated locally in an incendiary pamphlet, and on June 3, a large group of Arakan
villagers in Toungop stopped a bus and brutally killed 10 Muslims on board. Human Rights
Watch confirmed that local police and soldiers stood by and watched the killings without
intervening.
On June 8, thousands of Rohingya rioted in Maungdaw town after Friday prayers, destroying
Arakan property and killing an unknown number of Arakan residents. Sectarian violence
then quickly swept through the Arakan State capital, Sittwe, and surrounding areas.
Mobs from both communities soon stormed unsuspecting villages and neighborhoods,
killing residents and destroying homes, shops, and houses of worship. With little to no
government security present to stop the violence, people armed themselves with swords,
spears, sticks, iron rods, knives, and other basic weapons, taking the law into their own
hands. Vast stretches of property from both communities were razed. The government
claimed that 78 people were killed—an undoubtedly conservative figure—while more than
100,000 people were displaced from their homes. The hostilities were fanned by
inflammatory anti-Muslim media accounts and local propaganda.
During the period after the rape and killing was reported and before the violence broke out,
tensions had risen dramatically in Arakan State. However, local residents from each
community told Human Rights Watch that the Burmese authorities provided no protection
and did not appear to have taken any special measures to preempt the violence.
On June 10, fearing the unrest would spread beyond the borders of Arakan State, Burmese
President Thein Sein announced a state of emergency, transferring civilian power to the
Burmese army in affected areas of the state. At this point, a wave of concerted violence by
various state security forces against Rohingya communities began. For example, Rohingya
in Narzi quarter—the largest Muslim area in Sittwe, home to 10,000 Muslims—described
“THE GOVERNMENT COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS” 2
how Arakan mobs burned down their homes on June 12 while the police and paramilitary
Lon Thein forces opened fire on them with live ammunition. In northern Arakan State, the
Nasaka border guard force, the army, police, and Lon Thein committed killings, mass
arrests, and looting against Rohingya.
In the aftermath, local Arakan leaders and members of the Arakan community in Sittwe
have called for the forced displacement of the Muslim community from the city, while local
Buddhist monks have initiated a campaign of exclusion, calling on the local Buddhist
population to neither befriend nor do business with Muslims...
