10. September.2025
Summary of the Online Webinar on the Report Launch: The Ashes of Rakhine .Ongoing Atrocities Against the Rohingya in Rakhine State
The report documents systematic atrocities committed against the Rohingya by the Arakan Army (AA) between November 2023 and August 2024, following its takeover of large parts of Rakhine State. While the AA claims to fight for ethnic Rakhine self-determination, the evidence shows widespread targeting of Rohingya communities through violence, displacement, and denial of rights.
Key Findings
Village Destruction & Arson: Entire Rohingya villages and towns were systematically burned, leaving tens of thousands displaced within the state and outside such as Bangladesh and Thailand.
Mass Killings & Massacres: The Houyaseri (Htan Shauk Kan) village massacre in April–May 2024 killed 346 people, including children and pregnant women. In Buthidaung town, homes, markets, schools, and even the hospital sheltering displaced families were set ablaze.
Sexual Violence: Rohingya women and girls were subjected to mass rapes and sexual abuse, often in front of family members, used deliberately as a weapon of humiliation and displacement.
Abductions & Forced Conscription: Men and boys were kidnapped and forced to serve as porters, human shields, or fighters. Families remain unaware of the fate of many abducted relatives.
Forced Labour: Rohingya men were compelled to perform unpaid labour, including serving as night guards, cooking for troops, or carrying supplies.
Restricted Access to Aid & Healthcare: Internet shutdowns, looting of humanitarian supplies, and attacks on aid agencies left communities cut off from food, medicine, and medical treatment.
Dispossession of Land & Property: Burned villages were repopulated with Buddhist settlers or converted into AA military bases, erasing Rohingya presence and ties to ancestral land.
Wider Context
The report exposed the atrocities committed against the Rohingya community the long history of Rohingya persecution by the Myanmar through statelessness, disenfranchisement under the 1982 Citizenship Law, and the 2017 genocide. It shows how the AA reproduces the same patterns of denial, violence, and exclusion, branding Rohingya as “outsiders.”
Recommendations
The report calls for urgent international intervention, humanitarian access, accountability for crimes against humanity, and recognition of the Rohingya as rightful people of Rakhine.
The Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (ROHRIngya) convened a webinar on 23rd August 2025 to mark the launch of its latest finding report, The Ashes of Rakhine: Ongoing Atrocities Against Rohingya in the Rakhine State between November 2023 to August 2024. The event brought together researchers, activists, and human rights defenders to discuss the key findings of the report and to reflect on the implications for justice, accountability, and humanitarian response. Speakers emphasized how these accounts, drawn from survivor testimonies and field-based documentation, underscore the urgent need for international attention and action.
The session opened with an overview of the report’s central themes by Riya Singh Rathore. In her opening remarks, she highlighted that the report documents systematic atrocities and human rights violations perpetrated against Rohingya communities, including village burnings, mass killings, forced displacement, sexual violence, and restricted access to essential resources, the displacement of thousands of people. She also highlighted theHouyaseri massacre of 2024 where 346 men, women and children were brutally killed and there was no avenue for people to escape. The survivors recounted the incidents of indiscriminate shooting, targeted executions, burning of houses and bodies, in a way that there was no evidence left of the massacre other than the people who survived it somehow. It will be remembered as one of the darkest chapters of Rohingya history and in the ongoing persecution. This report is R4R’s effort to document the atrocities that are dying down and there is no outrage against it anymore. But the survivor testimonies, eye witness accounts, and ground investigation-based reports are our way to keep the Rohingya community alive.
After Riya’s introductory remarks, the webinar began with its first main speaker Hafser Tamessuddin who comes from the Rohingya community itself besides being the co-secretary general of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN). She stressed on the atrocities committed in the Arakan state against the Rohingyas for decades now. She recognised that the atrocities against the community have a long history, however, the attention of the international community had only gained only after 2012 and 2017. For her, the atrocities are a weapon, aimed at instilling fear among the Rohingyas, forcing them either to die in the country or to take any possible route of escape to other countries. This has resulted in mass migration in which lakhs of people from the community ended up as refugees in the neighbouring countries. For instance, within the Rakhine state, particularly in Sittwe 120000 Rohingya have been displaced since 2012 and another hundred thousands have been displaced since the Arakan Army took the control of Buthidaung and Muangdaw. Unfortunately, she exclaimed that none of these countries have any refugee policies. In some of the countries, the displaced refugees have become fodders of hate and xenophobia.
The next speaker was Jamalida Begum, who is a genocide survivor and has firsthand experience of the atrocities against the Rohingya community in the Arakan state. She was born in Rakhine, Myanmar, and endured years of persecution before facing unprecedented violence in October 2016. On 11 October, her husband was shot dead, and in the following days the military, together with extremist mobs, burned villages and houses. She, along with four other girls, was abducted and raped; the others did not survive, but she managed to escape. Determined to share the truth despite threats, she came forward to international reporters, even after her translator was killed. Forced to flee her village, she hid alone in the forest for 15 days, surviving on leaves. Her testimony reveals the scale of atrocities committed against the Rohingya by both the Junta and the Arakan Army in Rakhine State.
The next speaker, Meenakshi Ganguly, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch, Asia Division, began by thanking Jamalida Begum for her courage and apologising on behalf of those who have failed the Rohingya community. She agreed with Hafsar that this crisis has persisted for so long without a solution, and today the challenges are even greater than in 2017. Donor countries are cutting funds, diverting resources to defence, while Rohingyas in Rakhine remain in desperate need of attention, similar to Gaza. She stressed that unlike irregular migration driven by economic reasons, Rohingyas wish to return home but cannot. The situation, once driven by an abusive Junta, has only worsened under the Arakan Army, which continues the same persecution. She highlighted rape, forced marriage, and persecution in Bangladesh camps, as well as faith-based discrimination in India. Concluding, she asked what choices the Rohingya are left with and urged greater inclusion of Rohingya voices like Hafsar, Saber, and Jamalida Begum in international forums.
The next speaker was Klaus Dik Neilsen, who is also the co-secretary general of APRRN. He stressed on the importance of collaborating with the members of the community. Their organization has previously mediated between the refugees and the Australian government about a need-based solution. From their experience, he acknowledged the need to get more voices on board to reflect on the diverse population. He also mentions that right now the issue is a funding shortfall and change in political will.
John Quinley from Fortify Rights mentioned the pros and cons of international accountability. He noted that it will be important to follow the upcoming judgments from the International Court of Justice regarding crimes against humanity and deportation by the state of Myanmar. He also highlighted that the ICC prosecution has requested an arrest warrant for a Major General, a top-level commander, for crimes committed against the Rohingya in 2016–17. In addition, he called for the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes by the Arakan Army.
Maung Zarni, a Burmese genocide scholar and human rights activist, expressed his frustration that, even with 24/7 live streams, mass starvation is being perpetrated in Gaza, putting millions of lives at risk. When it comes to international accountability, Mr. Zarni noted that the majority of Buddhist citizens, largely pro-democracy, remain ignorant of the persecution and genocide of the Rohingya by the Arakan Army. Since 2024, in just over a year, at least 150,000 additional Rohingyas have been driven into Bangladesh as the Arakan Army now controls the lands where they once resided. He further highlighted that more than one million Rohingya children and youth, from school age up to college-going age, living in Cox’s Bazar and elsewhere, are being deprived of education and healthcare due to funding cuts. Inside Myanmar, he observed, there are no prospects: the military junta, the Arakan Army, and Burmese society at large all stand complicit in the violence and genocide, with no one issuing a single statement condemning the atrocities since 2017. He concluded by supporting the rising voices from within the Rohingya community itself, stressing that these voices could prove crucial in front of the international community and the only bright spot in this dire situation is the Rohingya’s refusal to give up.
On this note that Rohingyas refuse to give up, we came to listen to Sabber Kyaw Min, who represents the community with a strong voice coming from the community. He was born in Budidong town in Myanmar and left the country in 2005 and came to India in search of a better life. He explains how R4R documented the incidents of massacres in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. They talked to the survivors and recorded their accounts. Of the massacre of hoyasiri village where more than 600 people were killed, we could identify 346 of them by their name and age, which AA cannot deny. The scale of massacre was even greater than the past incedents of genocide in 2017 done my Myanmar military. On August 5, 2024 they used drones to kill around 300 Rohingyas near the Bangladesh border. The Internet has been shut down for the last two years. Documents and photos that we gathered came after few people fled the country and reached neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Malaysia or Thailand. He and his organization talked to quite a few survivors of the Hoyasiri village massacre and their incidents are documented in the report. The voices coming from international organisations like the UN are very limited and not enough to stop the atrocities against the Rohingya community. It is the failure of the international community and ours. Instead of saving them, Bangladesh and India are talking about deportation to a place where they are even more vulnerable in the hands of the Junta, as well as the Arakan Army. Finally, he calls for an immediate response from the international human rights organizations, NGOs and media organizations to show the outrage similar to 2017 and to work on this cause and to make the first-hand accounts of the survivors reach up to ICJ.
Saifulla Mohammad, the co-founder of the Rohingya Centre of Canada, stressed that the atrocities committed by the Arakan Army are not isolated acts of war but crimes against humanity. He emphasised that accountability of the Burmese government must begin with recognition that the Rohingya are the rightful inhabitants of Arakan and deserve justice not only as victims but as rightful citizens of that land. He urged that the international community must invest in prevention, not merely through words but through enforceable mechanisms. While the solution must come from within Burma, he noted, it also requires strong international support. He concluded by expressing his hope that this report would be the last of its kind.
The next speaker, Ali Johar, was also born in Rakhine State but was forced to leave the country at the age of ten, first seeking refuge in Bangladesh and later in India. He expressed his fear and disappointment at how so-called top-level diplomats, human rights activists, and self-proclaimed friends of the Rohingya have joined hands with the Arakan Army, the very perpetrators of atrocities. He pointed out that the horrifying evidence of these crimes has been documented in this report. In the second week of May, he said, his only hope of one day returning to his homeland was destroyed when his village was wiped out and hundreds of people were massacred, causing him a severe mental breakdown. He stressed that volunteers have taken enormous risks to collect and share evidence, since anyone found by the Arakan Army with a phone or internet connection is simply killed under false allegations of illegal activities and treason. The Ashes of Rakhine, he concluded, stands as evidence of the ongoing atrocities against the Rohingya, showing how a persecuted community has been forced to document its own suffering while the international community has repeatedly failed them.
The launch of The Ashes of Rakhine report, not only shed light on the grave atrocities committed against the Rohingya but also amplified the voices of survivors, activists, and allies who continue to demand justice for the Rohingya community. The discussions made clear that the persecution is ongoing, shifting from one perpetrator to another, and that accountability, recognition, and prevention remain urgent priorities. At a time when international attention and funding are dwindling, this report serves as a reminder of the resilience of the Rohingya community, who, despite immense risks, have taken upon themselves the task of documenting their own suffering. The responsibility now lies with the international community to act decisively, ensuring that the testimonies heard and the evidence presented do not remain as yet another record of unheeded warnings, but as a turning point towards justice, dignity, and lasting peace for the Rohingya people.
By the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (ROHRIngya)