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Agence France-Presse

Myanmar soldiers barred the entrance to the mosque, men arrived with machetes and petrol cans and then, according to Rohingya Muslim eyewitnesses, the killing began.
“Those that ran were hacked to death. Others that got away were shot by the army,” said Master Kamal, a 53-year-old teacher, and one of the survivors of the massacre in Aung Sit Pyin in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
“They were burning houses. We fled to save our lives.”
Kamal said he saw three neighbours – including a father and son – butchered as he fled, making a 10-day trek across monsoon-drenched hills, rivers and fields to Bangladesh.
Myanmar’s Rohingya militants declare one-month ceasefire to allow delivery of aid to Rakhine

Interviews with about 10 people from the village who found refuge at Balukhali camp in Bangladesh revealed horrific details of the events in Aung Sit Pyin on August 25.
That was the day Rohingya Muslim militants attacked police posts across Rakhine, sparking a violent crackdown that has so far driven almost 300,000 of Myanmar’s 1.1 million Rohingya population across the border.
The stateless Muslim minority blames Myanmar’s army and Buddhist mobs for the widespread killings. Their testimony is difficult to verify because access to Rakhine is heavily restricted.
Myanmar’s government has blamed Rohingya militants for the atrocities, including firebombing their own villages and killing civilians suspected of collaborating with the army.
Hong Kong protest against Rohingya persecution to urge help for Myanmar Muslim minority

Mohammad Amin, a 66-year-old farmer whose father was a village chief, said his family had lived in Aung Sit Pyin for three generations.
“This is the first time we have fled. I have never witnessed violence like this,” the farmer said.
When the shooting began he said he ran into the jungle to hide and crossed a river to avoid soldiers pursuing civilians. He then spent days searching for his seven sons and daughters in the brush, dodging military patrols.
Myanmar’s army says at least 400 people, mainly militants, have been killed in the violence. But there are fears that figure is underestimated, with other Rakhine villages also the target of alleged massacres.
Many of the refugees from Aung Sit Pyin reported seeing people slaughtered, or passing corpses cut down or burned as they sprinted in all directions from advancing forces.
Twenty-six families who made it out are now cramped underneath a large tarpaulin sheet in a muddy field behind Balukhali. There are no toilets nor clean water.
Some said the journey took seven days. Others said they spent up to 12 days hiding from the military and tackling steep passes and rain-soaked jungle to reach Bangladesh.
Nearly 100 people have drowned trying to cross the Naf river on the border, their bodies washing up on the shore. Others have arrived bearing injuries consistent with bullet wounds, or missing limbs from alleged landmines placed to deter evacuees from returning.
Kill all, burn all: the Japanese war tactic used on the Rohingya by Myanmar's military

The sprawling camps inside Bangladesh have swollen with newcomers like Jamal Hussain, 12, who said his five older brothers were cut down by machine gun fire in Aung Sit Pyin as they ran. He has not seen his parents or seven sisters since.
“We were all together but suddenly they started firing. I could not look back, because I thought I would die,” the softly-spoken boy said.
“When I was hiding, I remembered the whole thing. I started crying.”
On his shoulder was a welt and scar the size of a small coin, evidence of the splinter of shrapnel or bullet that he said struck his back and passed through.
“At first I didn’t know what happened, then people behind were saying there was blood on my back,” he said.
Plight of Myanmar's Rohingya: militant Islam's next rallying call?
Myanmar considers the Rohingya illegal migrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship, even though many have lived in Rakhine for generations.
Pressure is mounting on de facto leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung Sung Suu Kyi to end the violence.
Impoverished Bangladesh has been overwhelmed by the influx of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya over the past two years.
For those squatting in the mud in Balukhali there is nowhere left to go. Taking solace under a plastic sheet, mother of six named Begum, said she was prepared to “beg” for a living.
“If I have nothing to eat, I will eat soil, but I will never go back.”


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Rohingya Muslims

‘Those that ran were hacked to death’: Rohingyas relive massacre in Myanmar after fleeing to Bangladesh

A Rohingya refugee woman sits next to a makeshift shelter in a camp in the Bangladeshi locality of Ukhia. Photo: AFP

TOPSHOT - Newly arrived Rohingya refugees scuffle for relief supplies at Kutupalong refugee camp in the Bangladeshi locality of Ukhia on September 9, 2017. Nearly 300,000 Rohingya have fled violence churning through Rakhine state into Bangladesh, the United Nations said on September 9, as Myanmar's government for the first time offered humanitarian aid to members of the Muslim minority still inside the country. The UN is braced for a further surge of arrivals in Bangladesh with tens of thousands more believed to be displaced in Rakhine, fleeing burning villages, the army and ethnic Rakhine mobs -- who Rohingya refugees accuse of attacking civilians. / AFP PHOTO / Munir UZ ZAMAN

TOPSHOT - Rohingya Muslim refugee children follow a vehicle with relief supplies near the Bangladeshi town of Teknaf on September 10, 2017. Rohingya militants, whose August 25 raids in Myanmar's Rakhine State sparked an army crackdown that has seen nearly 300,000 of the Muslim minority flee to Bangladesh, on September 10 declared an immediate unilateral one-month ceasefire. Bedraggled and exhausted Rohingya refugees have arrived in huge numbers in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar area for over two weeks, while tens of thousands more are believed to be on the move inside Rakhine, many in desperate conditions after more than a fortnight without shelter, food and water. / AFP PHOTO / Munir UZ ZAMAN

TOPSHOT - Rohingya Muslim refugees wait in line for relief supplies after crossing the Naf river in the Bangladeshi town of Teknaf on September 9, 2017. Nearly 300,000 Rohingya have fled violence churning through Rakhine state into Bangladesh, the United Nations said on September 9, as Myanmar's government for the first time offered humanitarian aid to members of the Muslim minority still inside the country. The UN is braced for a further surge of arrivals in Bangladesh with tens of thousands more believed to be displaced in Rakhine, fleeing burning villages, the army and ethnic Rakhine mobs -- who Rohingya refugees accuse of attacking civilians. / AFP PHOTO / Munir UZ ZAMAN

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Almost 300,000 of the Muslim minority have fled across the border since militants attacked police posts in Rakhine last month
