Two soldiers who deserted from Myanmar’s army have testified on video that they were instructed by commanding officers to “shoot all that you see and that you hear” in villages where minority Rohingya lived, a human rights group said Tuesday.
The comments appear to be the first public confession by soldiers of involvement in army-directed massacres, rape and other crimes against Rohingya Muslims in the Buddhist-majority country.
More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since August 2017 to escape what Myanmar’s military called a clearance campaign following an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group in Rakhine state.
Myanmar’s government has denied accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes. The group said the two army privates fled the country last month and are believed to be in the custody of the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, which is examining the violence against the Rohingya.
Asked about the two soldiers, an ICC spokesman said Tuesday that “We have no new persons under arrest.” The two men “separately claimed to be acting on orders from senior commanders to ‘exterminate all (Rohingya),’ to ‘shoot all that you see and that you hear,’ and to ‘kill all’ Rohingya in specific areas,” Fortify Rights said in a statement.