New York, MINA – The United Nations High-Level Conference on the Rohingya Crisis on Tuesday. heard powerful testimonies from Rohingya activists detailing ongoing systematic abuses and human suffering in Rakhine State, western Myanmar.
According to Arakan News Agency (ANA), speakers emphasized that the genocide against the Rohingya in 2017 has not ended, as they continue to be used as human shields amid escalating violence.
Wafiq Hassan, founder of the Arakan Youth Peace Network, said he had personally faced systematic discrimination in Myanmar, including being denied access to higher education simply because he was Rohingya.
He noted that since the 2021 coup, 3.6 million people have been displaced, 1.5 million have become refugees, and 22 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
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Hassan stressed that the Rohingya are victims of a decades-long systematic genocide. He highlighted that renewed fighting since 2023 between the Myanmar military and Arakan Buddhist militias has worsened their plight, cutting off aid to around 200,000 Rohingya trapped in camps in Sittwe. Their homes and land have been seized, leaving them entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance.
He reported witnessing the forced recruitment of Rohingya youth and children, who were used as human shields in battles in Buthidaung and Rathedaung, where at least 400 people were killed in a single week.
He added that airstrikes by the Military Council, including the use of 500-pound bombs, killed 20 students in Kyauktaw, while militias committed abuses including arbitrary arrests, torture, and forced recruitment.
Hassan also recalled the Buthidaung massacre, which claimed 600 Rohingya lives, followed by the widespread burning of Rohingya areas and the mass displacement of some 200,000 people in a single day. []
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