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NYT: 'Rohingya Recount Atrocities: "They Threw My Baby Into a Fire"'

T

TheOfficeMut

Unconfirmed Member
Rohingya Recount Atrocities: ‘They Threw My Baby Into a Fire’
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — Hundreds of women stood in the river, held at gunpoint, ordered not to move.

A pack of soldiers stepped toward a petite young woman with light brown eyes and delicate cheekbones. Her name was Rajuma, and she was standing chest-high in the water, clutching her baby son, while her village in Myanmar burned down behind her.

“You,” the soldiers said, pointing at her.

She froze.

“You!”

She squeezed her baby tighter.

In the next violent blur of moments, the soldiers clubbed Rajuma in the face, tore her screaming child out of her arms and hurled him into a fire. She was then dragged into a house and gang-raped.

By the time the day was over, she was running through a field naked and covered in blood. Alone, she had lost her son, her mother, her two sisters and her younger brother, all wiped out in front of her eyes, she says.

Rajuma is a Rohingya Muslim, one of the most unwanted ethnic groups on earth, and she now spends her days drifting through a refugee camp in Bangladesh in a daze.

She relayed her story to me during a recent reporting trip I made to the camps, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya like her have rushed for safety. Her deeply disturbing account of what happened in her village, in late August, was corroborated by dozens of other survivors, whom I spoke with at length, and by human rights groups gathering evidence of atrocities.

Survivors said they saw government soldiers stabbing babies, cutting off boys’ heads, gang-raping girls, shooting 40-millimeter grenades into houses, burning entire families to death, rounding up dozens of unarmed male villagers and summarily executing them.
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More in the article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-atrocities.html?_r=1

Jashobeam said:
If you feel really strongly about this and not sure how to help, you can donate to the UN Refugee Agency, they are providing aid to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
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A

Azuran

Banned
It's pathetic and disheartening how the majority of humanity doesn't even know this is taking place

And the ones that do don't give a shit enough to do anything. But hey, let's worry about Iran and their nukes instead. At least we can make money from that.
 
Twilight Princess

Twilight Princess

Member
Ever wonder why the human penis is shaped like a plunger? Gang rape.
At this point, I’m choosing to believe human beings are innately violent creatures, nurture can influence behavior but never completely change it.
 
N

N7 MRP Weasel

Banned
I brought this up at work and people were all like "really?" "that sucks" "no way!"

... Etc "yeah but these fucking football players need to be grateful of what they have and stop disrespecting the dead" in one ear out the other.

The average American just does not give a shit until fox news or whatever tells them that its something they should be passionate about which would otherwise not make the slightest of difference in their life.
 
S

SRG01

Member
Kind of personal, but my late-grandmother witnessed similar atrocities when she survived the Japanese invasion of China and Hong Kong. She didn't talk about it very much, but it was still something that our generation needed to hear...

... because when this stuff does happen, we have to remind ourselves that we can't turn a blind eye to it.
 
R

Rush_Khan

Member
I am unable to imagine in my head someone throwing my baby son into a fire (if I had one), and yet this is actually happening somewhere. I just can't imagine what kind of monster is okay with doing that. And yet the world just watches on.
 
Mohonky

Mohonky

Member
neorej said:
When will the world step in?
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This sort of thing has been happening for decades in some African nations. You see anyone stepping in there?

Last I checked Africa had the most nations in the top 10 of nations committing ethnic genocide. Heard about any of them? Probably not. Nothing to be gained from stepping in or on the opposite end, staying silent and letting it happen is more economically beneficial.
 
S

SRG01

Member
Jonnax said:
I feel sick to the bottom of my stomach.

It's pure evil.
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Our Western governments are complicit by not staging an immediate intervention in the region. We proved that we have the ability to do this after the Balkins. Why can't we do that now?
 
L

LeroyPantwether

Member
Rush_Khan said:
I am unable to imagine in my head someone throwing my baby son into a fire (if I had one), and yet this is actually happening somewhere. I just can't imagine what kind of monster is okay with doing that. And yet the world just watches on.
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I have a son and can't imagine . I have no idea how survivors of these type of atrocities maintain the will to go on .
 
F

fuzzyset

Member
09massacres-6-superJumbo.jpg
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A drawing by a Rohingya boy about his experiences while fleeing Myanmar.
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I can't even fathom a situation like that.
 
Osukaa

Osukaa

Member
My god... The fact that she is still trying to survive is so hard to fathom for me... If I saw my family murdered in front of me let alone a child ( I dont have any ) I dont know if I would be able to go on... This is Hitler level of evil...
Its hard that this is happening and no one here in the US is covering it, for Fucks sake this is awful I started tearing up just reading her account of what happened then to top it off she got raped by the murderers of her family. I don't believe in a higher power but this has me praying to God, Allah, Buddha or whoever, if anyone is up there to give these people justice.
 
N

Nivash

Member
SRG01 said:
Our Western governments are complicit by not staging an immediate intervention in the region. We proved that we have the ability to do this after the Balkins. Why can't we do that now?
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The only western country that even remotely has the ability to intervene in Asia is the US. Europe can't deploy in force that far from home anymore (or, hell, at all really - remember Libya?) and the ANZACs just don't have the power, the logistics or anything else needed to take on what is, after all, a fairly competent and semi-modern military.

So it's basically down to this: are you saying you want Trump to invade Myanmar?
 
Z

Zvonimir Boban

Banned
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order said:
Blowback from interventions in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan was immense. Who wants a repeat of that?
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lol

Why all the tough talk about Iran and North Korea, if it's blowback that we're worried about?

Fact of the matter is, nobody gives a fuck about these people being massacred because they're not white and they live in a country where Westerners don't go on holiday.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Horrible. I have no words.

The two main ethnic groups in her village, the Buddhist Rakhines and the Muslim Rohingya, were like two planes drawn to never touch. They followed different religions, spoke different languages, ate different foods and have always distrusted each other.

A community of Buddhists lived just a few minutes from Rajuma's house, but she had never spoken with any of them.

”They hate us," she said.

Azeem Ibrahim, a Scottish academic who recently wrote a book on the Rohingya, explained that much of the animosity could be traced to World War II, when the Rohingya fought on the British side and many Buddhists in Rakhine fought for the occupying Japanese. Both sides massacred civilians.

After the Allies won, the Rohingya hoped to win independence or join East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh), which was also majority Muslim and ethnically similar to the Rohingya. But the British, eager to appease Myanmar's Buddhist majority, decreed that the Rohingya areas would become part of newly independent Myanmar (then called Burma), setting the Rohingya up for decades of discrimination.
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Colonialist bullshit rearing its ugly head again. Not that the responsibility falls strictly on them, of course, but ugh:
Myanmar's leaders soon began stripping their rights and blaming them for the country's shortcomings, claiming the Rohingya were illegal migrants from Bangladesh who had stolen good land.

”Year after year, they were demonized," Mr. Ibrahim said.

Some influential Buddhist monks said the Rohingya were the reincarnation of snakes and insects and should be exterminated, like vermin.
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Small wonder then that many didn't trust a Buddhist who warned them that soldiers were coming, and so didn't flee to safety:
Over the next few days, Rajuma watched huge fires burn on the horizon. The military was beginning what it called ”clearance operations." Rohingya villages all around Tula Toli were burned to the ground, and on the night of Aug. 29, an elder came from the mosque to Rajuma's house to deliver a message: The Buddhists say we should go to the river, for our safety.

Her family decided to stay put. ”Nobody trusts a Buddhist," Rajuma said.
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And then what happened to her family:
In Tula Toli, Rajuma fought as hard as she could to hold onto her baby, Muhammad Sadeque, about 18 months old.

But one soldier grabbed her hands, another grabbed her body, and another slugged her in the face with a club. A jagged scar now runs along her jaw.

The child was lifted away from her, his legs wiggling in the air.

”They threw my baby into a fire — they just flung him," she said.

Rajuma said two soldiers then pulled her into a house, tore off her veil and dress and raped her. She said that her two sisters were raped and killed in the same room, and that in the next room, her mother and 10-year-old brother were shot.

At some point, Rajuma thought she had died. She lost consciousness. When she woke, the soldiers were gone, but the house was on fire.
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:(

Edit:
kmax said:
Throwing an innocent baby into a flaming fire.

Oh my god.
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Just another Columbus Day celebration, with fire instead of dogs, I guess.
 
M

mdubs

Banned
Absolutely horrible. I honestly don't see what the world can do about this and it's a horrible feeling.
 
N

Nivash

Member
Sunster said:
we can do other things beside invade.
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Which is what, exactly? Take away the foreign aid they aren't recieving anyway? Impose trade sanctions on a nation that only really trades with China in the first place? Write them a strongly worded letter and condemn them in the UN? Take away Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize? Ask China to make them stop, using the complete lack of leverage the west evidently has over China if North Korea is any indication?

This is what a multi-polar world looks like. Staring in horror at atrocities committed far away and knowing you can't really do anything about it, because the only people who can don't give a shit.
 
O

Oberon

Banned
Morrigan Stark said:
Horrible. I have no words.
Colonialist bullshit rearing its ugly head again. Not that the responsibility falls strictly on them, of course, but ugh:

Small wonder then that many didn't trust a Buddhist who warned them that soldiers were coming, and so didn't flee to safety:

And then what happened to her family:
:(
Edit:
Just another Columbus Day celebration, with fire instead of dogs, I guess.
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I wonder how much people get taught about colonialism in british schools ( or any school for that matter because we barelly touched that subject)

edit: Things like this makes me think Nazi Germany and their concentration camps wouldn't have been stopped if they didn't just happen to take place in Europe
 
M

mdubs

Banned
Nivash said:
Which is what, exactly? Take away the foreign aid they aren't recieving anyway? Impose trade sanctions on a nation that only really trades with China in the first place? Write them a strongly worded letter and condemn them in the UN? Take away Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize? Ask China to make them stop, using the complete lack of leverage the west evidently has over China if North Korea is any indication?

This is what a multi-polar world looks like. Staring in horror at atrocities committed far away and knowing you can't really do anything about it, because the only people who can don't give a shit.
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Yup. Who can put a stop to this?
 
Astral Dog

Astral Dog

Member
My God, that was difficult to read, ill have to know more about this.
N7 MRP Weasel said:
I brought this up at work and people were all like "really?" "that sucks" "no way!"

... Etc "yeah but these fucking football players need to be grateful of what they have and stop disrespecting the dead" in one ear out the other.

The average American just does not give a shit until fox news or whatever tells them that its something they should be passionate about which would otherwise not make the slightest of difference in their life.
Click to expand...
Yeah though its not really their fault, more people that care (in power) and news network could be giving human rights the spotlight it deserves, they just won't.

So most people outside that zone are obviously unaware.
 
C

Chaos2Frozen

Member
Nivash said:
Which is what, exactly? Take away the foreign aid they aren't recieving anyway? Impose trade sanctions on a nation that only really trades with China in the first place? Write them a strongly worded letter and condemn them in the UN? Take away Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize? Ask China to make them stop, using the complete lack of leverage the west evidently has over China if North Korea is any indication?

This is what a multi-polar world looks like. Staring in horror at atrocities committed far away and knowing you can't really do anything about it, because the only people who can don't give a shit.
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I'm okay with treating them like North Korea 2.0

It'll take awhile but the country would definitely suffer.
 
O

OG Shaka Zulu

Member
Sunster said:
what?
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I've seen the sentiment before that the human penis head is shaped that way so that when you orgasm, you inject your sperm in the last thrusts and on the pull out the head is scooping away any foreign sperm. I never put 2 and 2 together to associate this with gang rape. With how vile men still are several thousands of years after "civilization", this would not surprise me at all since we've been around for at least half a million years.

I'm no scientist though.
 
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