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Over 1,200 Rohingya children under 5 killed in the first month of Burma Army push

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The aid organization Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) has reported the deaths of 11,393 Rohingya people in the first 31 days of fighting against the ethnic minority; 1,713 were children under the age of five. “Of these, 8,170 deaths were due to violence … including 1,247 children under five years of age.” The survey admits for a range of possibilities due to the nature of surveys, but any way you look at it, the numbers are staggeringly high.

Anyone who has lived and worked in a rural war zones know that, after the initial violent surges subside and the years start to go by, it is not usually the violence that kills most people, it’s that the war cuts off all access to basic needs, healthcare and otherwise. What might be a simple trip to the doctor in the U.S. could easily kill a person in Rakhine State now — diarrhea, for example, is a major killer. That is not to dismiss the violent deaths by any means, and the numbers reported by Doctors Without Borders is significant.

503,698 Rohingya refugees were interviewed in addition to another 104,410 who were already in Bangladesh, which is a significant majority of the Rohingya population that has fled from Burma. There are approximately 626,000 refugees in Bangladesh that have recently come across the border.

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Comments

Join our community. To comment on this article please join/login. Here's a sample of the comments on this post.

  • Avatar
    John B

    https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2017/12/19/bangladesh-and-myanmar-form-joint-panel-to-repatriate-rohingyas Let's hope the repatriating of the Rohingya's is swiftly and efficiently implemented. John

  • Avatar
    Susan B

    Though there are many groups that are helping the refuges in Bangladesh, such as Samaritan's Purse, UNICEF, Save the Children, ION of the UN, and more, it is not getting the problem at its root...the Myanmar government. It seems that M S M does not find a market for this type of news. Where are all the professed "bleeding hearts" that are supposed to care about situations such as these? I guess they are too busy worrying about the mother's of unwanted children not being able to get abortions, or some adult females that endured sexual harrassment at her job, or even...God forbid...a cross or other Christian image or message that will totally hurt and corrupt the mind of some poor innocent in school, or college, or public place that may have to see it. Where is our government on this issue? Why isn't Ambassador Haley beating this drum? We finally have a Religious Freedom Ambassador in Sam Brownback. Isn't his role to go to countries that are causing issue with religious minorities in their country? It's not just for Christian minority issues. As someone else mentioned in the comments...we spend so much money to aid people that turn around and screw over us and yet it doesn't give aid to people like these that truly need it. We should be looking at whatever aid or assistance we are giving Myanmar and put hawsers on it until they change their animus to the Rohingya and other minority people. The same could be said for the poor citizens of Yemen that are caught up in the national (or international) struggle for religious control.

  • Avatar
    minou

    As a mother, it's the babies that hurt me the most. And, naturally, it's the babies who are the most vulnerable in this kind of situation. Little ones are so fragile. Oh Luke, I wish I could change things.

  • Avatar
    Joy B

    It’s not just lack of reporting. Can you imagine the help that could be funded if we had some of the millions that have been sent to our enemies in “aid” and “payments”? It could also be that the sanctions on Burmese exports like rubies need to be put back in place

  • Avatar
    Joni S

    This is truly heartbreaking. The only good thing of those statistics I read was that zero percent were killed following a sexual attack.The other types of deaths are unspeakable enough. The deaths of these children should be in the news, but yet I have not heard one peep about the strife of the Rohingya people. Thank you Luke for bringing us these stories of the Karen and the Rohingya. Seems both are a forgotten people facing genocide. I can't imagine the horrors that the Rohingya people have faced. The pictures you have posted speak volumes of the pain and hardship and torture they have endured. It seems if only a miracle would prevent them from eventual extinction.