Slaughter House

From Here A River Of Blood Will Flow
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)

(More Rohingya Men Found Dead)

In Arakan a jail house has become what Tuol Sleng was in Cambodia during its genocide. The Buthidaung jail is now a slaughter house for Rohingya who have been driven out of their ghettos during the liquidations. These are people who were first placed in these ghettos by the very government who now sends them off to torture centers. These are people who were forced out of the "safety" of the ghettos by thugs and police who now round them up for more massacres. These are the Rohingya the world has forgot. 

For more than half a year now the world has remained silent. The West has decided to avoid the topic of genocide or even calling it the code phrase "ethnic cleansing". Instead the governments of the East and West alike have all decided to ignore the massacres so that they can get at Myanmar's emerging economy. The riches that have long been locked up by the Junta are now up for grabs. And it is under this fog that the genocide of the Rohingya people has been taking place. 

In Sittwe the liquidation of ghettos in neighboring areas (Maungdaw, Rathedaung, Kyauktaw) have brought new "prisoners" to the Buthidaung jail house. These prisoners are often kept in rooms that are meant to hold less than a hundred people. These rooms are crammed with up to triple the amount of people they can actually hold. The prisoners are squeezed in and forced to live without access to clean water or restroom areas. Food is scarce and disease common. 

There are currently an estimated 1,000 (at least) Rohingya being held in the Buthidaung prison. They are not being provided medical attention for illnesses or wounds inflicted upon them. All are subject to random beatings and torture at the hands of the prison guards and local military dispatches. None are expected to make it out of the jail alive.

As the corpses pile up behind the jail the government of Myanmar has approved an arrest list of around 900 more Rohingya. In essence the Myanmar government has shifted from ghettos to concentration camps. All the while the outside world has failed to pay any attention to this tragedy.

It appears that Stalin was correct... the death of one person is tragedy, the death of a thousand is a statistic.