21 Rohingya women recall rape horrors perpetrated by Myanmar security forces

21 Rohingya women recall rape horrors perpetrated by Myanmar security forces

The use of rape by Myanmar’s armed forces has been sweeping and methodical, The Associated Press found in interviews with 29 Rohingya Muslim women and girls now in Bangladesh.

They were interviewed separately, come from a variety of villages in Myanmar and now live spread across several refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Yet their stories were hauntingly similar.

Despite scores of reports to the contrary, including a United Nations report, Myanmar's military continues to deny its soldiers raped any Rohingya women. A UN envoy has said the sexual abuse "could be crimes against humanity".

Here are the accounts as told by 21 women and girls.

They agreed to be identified in this story by their first initial only, out of fear the military will kill them or their families.

Warning: The accounts below contain graphic details some readers may find disturbing.

R, 13: 'The pain was excruciating'

R, 13, who says she was raped by members of Myanmar's armed forces in late August, is photographed in her family's tent in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. ─ AP

She is only 13, but R had already learned to fear the military men.

Last year, she says, soldiers stabbed her father to death.

One day in late August, 10 soldiers barged into R’s house.

They snatched her two little brothers, tied them to a tree and beat them.

R, 13, shows off the scars on her knees and right shin from injuries obtained when members of Myanmar's armed forces dragged her out of her house before gang raping her. ─ AP

R tried to run out the front door, but the men caught her. They tethered her arms to two trees. They ripped off her earrings and bracelets, and stripped off her clothes.

R screamed at them to stop. They spit at her.

Then the first man began to rape her. The pain was excruciating.

All 10 men forced themselves on her before she passed out.

R’s older brothers carried her toward the border.

Once in Bangladesh, a doctor gave her emergency contraceptives.

R desperately misses her little brothers, and her sleep is plagued by nightmares. She struggles to eat.

Before the rape, she says softly, she was pretty.

F, 22: Raped twice

F, 22, who says she was raped by members of Myanmar's armed forces in June and again in September, cries as she speaks to AP in her tent in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. ─ AP

F and her husband were asleep at home in June when seven soldiers charged into their bedroom. The men bound her husband with rope and gagged him with a scarf they ripped from F’s head.

They yanked off F’s jewelry and stripped off her clothes. They threw her to the floor, where the first soldier began to rape her.

Her husband wriggled the gag from his mouth and screamed. One soldier shot him, and another slit his throat.

F, 22, pregnant, prays in her tent in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. ─ AP

After the assault, the men dumped F’s naked body outside her home and set it on fire.

The neighbours rescued her. Two months later, she realised she was pregnant.

In September, her nightmare began again.

F was asleep at a neighbour's house when five soldiers broke down the door.

The soldiers slashed the throat of the 5-year-old boy who lived there and killed his father.

They stripped off the women’s clothes. Two men raped F, and three men raped her friend.

After the men left, the women lay on the floor for days before fleeing for Bangladesh.

Despite everything, F is determined to love the child.