HRW, in a report, describes the role of government of Myanmar and local authorities in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims and the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

According to the report, Myanmar officials, community leaders, and Buddhist monks organized and encouraged ethnic Arakanese backed by state security forces to conduct coordinated attacks on Muslim neighborhoods and villages in October 2012 to terrorize and forcibly relocate the population. The tens of thousands of displaced have been denied access to humanitarian aid and been unable to return home.

“The government needs to put an immediate stop to the abuses and hold the perpetrators accountable or it will be responsible for further violence against ethnic and religious minorities in the country,”
 said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director.

Following sectarian violence between Arakanese and Rohingya in June 2012, government authorities destroyed mosques, conducted violent mass arrests, and blocked aid to displaced Muslims.

On October 23, after months of meetings and public statements promoting ethnic cleansing, Arakanese mobs attacked Muslim communities in nine townships, razing villages and killing residents while security forces stood aside or assisted the assailants, HRW said.

Some of the dead were buried in mass graves, further impeding accountability, HRW added.

Human Rights Watch traveled to Arakan State following the waves of violence and abuses in June and October, visiting sites of attacks and every major displaced person camp, as well as unofficial displacement sites.

The report draws on more than 100 interviews with Rohingya and non-Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese who suffered or witnessed abuses, as well as some organizers and perpetrators of the violence.

Satellite images obtained by Human Rights Watch from just 5 of the 13 townships that experienced violence since June show 27 unique zones of destruction, including the destruction of 4,862 structures covering 348 acres of mostly Muslim-owned residential property.

“Myanmar should accept an independent international commission to investigate crimes against humanity in Arakan State, locate victims, and provide redress,” said Robertson.

“Mynamar’s donors need to wake up and realize the seriousness of the Rohingya’s plight, and demand that the government urgently stop abuses, promote the safe return of displaced Muslims, and ensure accountability to end the deadly cycle of violence in Arakan State.”

More than 120,000 people fled arson and machete attacks in Rakhine state and thousands have embarked on perilous journeys on rickety wooden boats to other countries, where they are prey to human trafficking gangs.

An estimated 800,000 stateless Rohingyas live in Myanmar, where the authorities restrict their movements and access to employment and consider them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

“It is clear that the Indian Ocean has become for people fleeing their countries one of the deadliest stretches of water in the world,” the agency’s spokesman, Andrej Mahecic, told journalists in Geneva.

The agency estimates that out of the 13,000 people who left on smugglers’ boats in 2012, close to 500 died at sea when their boats broke down or capsized in the Bay of Bengal.

“Already in 2013, several thousand people are believed to have boarded smugglers boats in the Bay of Bengal,” Mr. Mahecic added.

Of particular concern is the Rohingya community from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state which is not recognized by the Government and remain stateless. Fighting between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in the state erupted last June, uprooting 115,000 people – the majority of them Rohingya – and sending them to live in internally displaced camps in Myanmar or to refugee and makeshift camps in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries.

While men have usually been the ones crossing, recent weeks have seen an increase of women and children among smuggled passengers, signalling growing desperation and lack of prospects, according to UNHCR.

Among the most recent incidents, around 90 people believed to be Rohingya died of dehydration and starvation during a two-month journey. More than 30 survivors from the same vessel were rescued last weekend by Sri Lanka’s navy off that country’s coast.

“UNHCR is greatly saddened by this latest terrible ordeal, and commends the quick action of the Sri Lankan navy in rescuing this group and providing immediate medical attention,” Mr. Mahecic said. He added that the agency is ready to support the Sri Lankan authorities in assisting any among them who are in need of international protection.

Meanwhile, UNHCR is urging governments, including Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, which have accepted large numbers of refugees, to agree on protocols for the safe and quick disembarkation of rescued passengers and the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance.

“UNHCR recognizes the regional dimension of the irregular movements of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants by sea. Genuine cooperative regional approaches that promote sharing of burdens and responsibility could offer asylum-seekers and refugees an alternative to dangerous and exploitative boat journeys,” Mr. Mahecic said.

The agency said it will facilitate discussions between governments and international organizations on this topic at a regional meeting to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in March.

According to media reports, Government officials have said that at least 56 people have been killed and hundreds of homes torched since Sunday in the north of Rakhine state, located in western Myanmar.

Tensions between the Buddhist majority and the stateless Muslim Rohingya minority have been rife since deadly violence began in June. Tens of thousands people were living in camps around Sittwe, the state capital of Rakhine state, already before the latest flare-up. The total number of displaced is now estimated to be around 100,000, according to Al Jazeera.

On Thursday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the authorities in Myanmar to take action to bring an end to the lawlessness currently affecting the state, with the UN chief’s spokesperson describing the most recent outbreak of communal violence in five townships in the state’s north as “deeply troubling.”

New satellite imagery obtained by Human Rights Watch shows extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area of the coastal town of Kyauk Pyu – one of several areas of new violence and displacement.

Human Rights Watch identified 811 destroyed structures on the eastern coastal edge of Kyauk Pyu following arson attacks reportedly conducted on October 24, 2012, less than 24 hours before the satellite images were captured.

Human Rights Watch fears the death toll is far higher than what government officials have said based on allegations from witnesses fleeing scenes of carnage and the government’s well-documented history of underestimating figures that might lead to criticism of the state.

In June, Human Rights Watch documented killings, rape, and mass arrests by security forces against Rohingya Muslims after the security forces failed to protect both them and Arakan Buddhists during deadly sectarian violence. Since then, government restrictions on humanitarian access to the Rohingya community left many of the displaced.

Myanmar’s government denies citizenship to most Rohingya and the protections that come with it. Since communal violence between Rohingya and Arakanese erupted in June, many Rohingya have been compelled to live in squalid camps in Arakan State, where they have been denied access to adequate humanitarian aid and vulnerable to attack from Arakan militants.

President Thein Sein appointed an investigative commission earlier in 2012 to determine the causes of violence, but has yet to propose any policies to address those causes. He has at times called for the segregation of the Rohingya and even their expulsion from Myanmar, which feeds popular animosity against the Rohingya from the general population.

“Such positive steps will help support Myanmar’s ongoing process of democratization and reform,” the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General, Vijay Nambiar, said in a statement on the fact-finding visit led by the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoðlu, undertaken at the invitation of the Government of Myanmar.

Recent tensions between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine have left at least a dozen civilians dead and hundreds of homes destroyed, as well as at least 64,000 people displaced.

The Turkish delegation visited the camps of both Muslims and Buddhists displaced by the violence, where humanitarian aid provided by Turkey was distributed, representing the first such assistance accepted by Myanmar outside that provided by the UN, according to Mr. Nambiar’s statement.

“This has demonstrated the willingness of the Myanmar Government to cooperate with the international community to alleviate the suffering of its people,” Mr. Nambiar said, adding that he and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had been in continuous contact with authorities on the matter.

Last week, at the end of four-day mission to Myanmar, the Director of Operations for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Ging, warned of the rapidly growing needs faced by over half a million internally displaced persons in the Asian nation, and called on the Government to give aid agencies access to all areas of the country.

A series of democratic reforms in Myanmar, begun last year and led by President Thein Sein, culminated in April elections in which pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi won a position in the lower house of parliament and which Mr. Ban, in a visit soon after, called “a historic moment.”

Myanmar security forces committed killings, rape, and mass arrests against Rohingya Muslims after failing to protect both them and Arakan Buddhists during deadly sectarian violence in western Myanmar that erupted in June,” New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report.

Government restrictions on humanitarian access to the Rohingya community have left many of the over 100,000 people displaced and in dire need of food, shelter, and medical care.

“Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass roundups against the Rohingya,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife and abuse, but recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist.”

The Burmese government should take urgent measures to end abuses by their forces, ensure humanitarian access, and permit independent international monitors to visit affected areas and investigate abuses, Human Rights Watch said.

The country formerly called Burma has a diverse ethnic and religious make-up, but the Rohingya Muslims are not included by the government.

Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law effectively denies  citizenship to the Rohingya population, estimated at 800,000 to 1 million people. On July 12, Myanmar’s President Thein Sein said the “only solution” to the sectarian strife was to expel the Rohingya to other countries or to camps overseen by the United Nations refugee agency, Human Rights Watch said.

UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres replied it could only resettle refugees that fled from one country to another. Neighbouring Bangladesh does not accept them and pushed boatloads back out to sea when they tried to flee the unrest. ”Bangladesh is violating its international legal obligations by callously pushing asylum seekers in rickety boats back into the open sea,” Adams said. The violence erupted in early June after reports circulated that on May 28 an Arakan Buddhist woman was raped and killed in the town of Ramri by three Muslim men. on June 3 a large group of Arakan villagers in Toungop stopped a bus and brutally killed 10 Muslims on board. Violence between Rohingya and Arakan then swept through Sittwe and surrounding areas.

Since June, the government has detained hundreds of Rohingya men and boys, who remain incommunicado. The authorities in northern Arakan State have a long history of torture and mistreatment of Rohingya detainees, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch urged the Burmese government to end arbitrary and incommunicado detention, and redeploy and hold accountable security forces implicated in serious abuses. Burmese authorities should ensure safe access to the area by the United Nations (UN), independent humanitarian organizations, and the media.

The recent sectarian violence began after an ethnic Arakan woman was allegedly raped and killed by three Muslim men on Ramri island in southern Arakan State in late May, which was followed by the June 3 killing of 10 Muslims by an Arakan mob in Toungop. On June 8, thousands of Rohingya rioted in the town of Maungdaw, destroying Arakan property and causing an unknown number of deaths. Groups of Rohingya subsequently committed killings and other violence elsewhere in the state, burning down Arakan homes and villages. Arakan groups, in some cases with the collusion of local authorities and police, committed violence against Rohingya communities, including killings and beatings, and burning down Muslim homes and villages.

On June 10, President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in northern Arakan State, which permits the armed forces to carry out arrests and detain people without fundamental due process protections. While the Burmese army has largely contained the sectarian violence, abuses by security forces against Rohingya communities appear to be on the upsurge in recent weeks, Human Rights Watch said.

 Local police and the Nasaka, claiming to be searching for Rohingya criminal suspects involved in the sectarian strife, have conducted mass round-ups of Rohingya.

Nevertheless, the mass arrests ongoing in northern Arakan State seem to be discriminatory, as the authorities in these townships do not appear to be investigating or apprehending Arakan suspected of criminal offenses, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch documented the destruction of Buddhist temples, mosques, and thousands of Arakan and Rohingya houses that were burned to the ground during the sectarian violence, leaving an estimated 90,000 people displaced and taking segregated refuge in temporary camps and community sites.

“The sectarian violence and state of emergency provides no excuse for the security forces to continue their past record of abuses and discrimination against the Rohingya community.”

The Burmese government restricts international access to northern Arakan State – an area comprising the predominantly Muslim townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung – and severely curtails freedom of movement for Rohingya residents. The Nasaka’s long history of arbitrary detentions, torture, and other ill-treatment of Rohingya detainees heightens concerns about the recent mass arrests, Human Rights Watch said.

The government has not allowed independent investigations in the affected areas since the violence began.

The government should invite the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tomas Quintana, to Arakan State to conduct an urgent visit to investigate the violence and conduct of the security forces, Human Rights Watch said, adding that authorities should immediately disclose the location of all detention centers, provide the names of all detainees, bring them promptly before a judge, and allow independent humanitarian agencies access to all facilities.