Atrocities against Rohingyas: Arakan Army also under scanner of investigators, says UN official

The UN investigation team on Myanmar will also look into the alleged involvement of the Arakan Army in atrocities against the Rohingyas in the Rakhine State in Myanmar, a senior UN official said on Sunday.

“We have a mandate to collect evidence of crimes committed by anyone, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality, against anyone, regardless of the victims,” said Nicholas Koumjian, head of the UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar.

He said that it was very important to look at any evidence showing the Arakan army and any other force had committed serious international crimes.

The investigation team head added that the UN had requested information from them about allegations of crimes, including crimes allegedly committed by the Arakan Army.

“They told us they would respond, but we have not received a response, and we are awaiting that. We'll be sending more requests to them for more information”.

“We want all players, all participants in the conflict in Myanmar to know we exist. There's a body watching, collecting evidence of these serious international crimes, and one day we are seeking justice for these crimes that people will be held to account” he added.

Responding to a question, he said unfortunately, there is an increase in violations of very serious crimes recently.

“We've seen bombings that are affecting civilians all over the country, very serious attacks on targets that do not appear to be military in nature. We've also seen crimes in detention, including sexual violence and torture of people in detention”.

“Obviously, the aerial bombings are done by the military authorities. We've seen, unfortunately, evidence of very serious crimes committed by other groups also in Myanmar, and this also falls within our mandate [to check] if they qualify as serious international crimes. So we're trying to gather as much of this information as possible,” he said. 

About his meeting with the foreign ministry high ups, he said, “In the meetings, we all acknowledged that the situation, unfortunately, is not getting better. It's getting worse. We see continued violence, and it's important we send a message to all the people in Myanmar, and particularly potential perpetrators, that someone is watching and collecting evidence”.

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