Summary of Policy Recommendations - Regional Integration and Connectivity

The crisis in Rakhine state has not abated more than four months since the October 2016 attacks by suspected militants sympathetic to the Rohingya community. As well, military operations against some ethnic armed groups in the country continued over the last three months, further aggravating civilian suffering in affected areas. As of early February 2017, UN agencies reported that about 1,500 houses in 30 villages in Rakhine have been razed and that close to 70,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees already fled to Bangladesh. At least 23,000 people in Rakhine have been internally displaced and over 100 people were killed in the aftermath of clearing operations conducted by Myanmar’s security forces. (Two unnamed UN officials, however, reportedly claimed that Myanmar’s forces may have killed more than 1,000 Rohingyas during the crackdown since October.) For its part, the UN Human Rights Commissioner’s office released a report on 3 February that detailed “mass gang-rape, killings (including babies and small children), disappearances, and other serious human rights violations by Myanmar’s forces” in a sealed-off area of Maungdaw in Rakhine. The report was based on 204 interviews of victims across the border in Bangladesh conducted by a team of UN human rights investigators. More than half of the 101 women interviewed claimed to have suffered rape or other forms sexual violence. Although the Myanmar government has allowed the resumption of delivery of UN and other agencies’ humanitarian aid to affected communities in Rakhine, this has been restricted through local staff and humanitarian workers could not undertake needs assessments and protection activities.