Myanmar security forces appear to have engaged in systematic rape of Rohingya Muslim women and girls, Human Rights Watch said Monday, while calling for an independent, international investigation into the alleged abuses.
In a report, the New York-based watchdog cited witness accounts that soldiers and border guards took part in rape, gang rape, invasive body searches, and sexual assaults in at least nine villages in Maungdaw district of the northern part of Rakhine State between October and December.
They said the perpetrators, who were identified as army and border police units by their uniforms, kerchiefs, armbands and patches, carried out attacks in groups, with some holding women down or threatening them at gunpoint while others raped them, sometimes while insulting their ethnicity and religion.