By Assed Baig
DVB News:
April 4, 2013
DVB News:
April 4, 2013
Reports of what actually took place in the central
Burmese town of Meikhtila are still emerging, but internally displaced persons
(IDPs) are beginning to speak out and tell the world of what they witnessed
with their own eyes.
“They beat them in front of me. I was watching. I can
still see it.” Noor Bi, is crying as she describes the moment when she saw her
husband and brother murdered in front of her eyes as she fled Meikhtila.
The mob outnumbered the police and they were unable to
protect the Muslim minority of the town. The 26-year-old is now a widow with a
three-year-old son.
As she told her story and what she witnessed, the
people around her in the make shift IDP camp now set up in the grounds of a
Muslim school in Yindaw – around 10 miles south of Meikhtila – began to cry.
Grown men sobbed at hearing her ordeal.
“They beat them and beat them, they were still alive
when they threw my husband and brother in the fire. They were burnt alive.”
Tears stream down her face as she continues to relay her account.
“Once they had finished, they told us to bow down to
them. We bowed down towards Mecca, but they started to beat us.” Noor pauses
and then seems reluctant to tell the next part of her ordeal.
“The police asked the monks and the mob to stop
beating us and that they would ensure that we would bow down to the monks.” The
faces of the other people listening clearly show their disgust at what she
described.
“They made us worship them. That is why we lived on
that day,” she looks to the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with me or
anyone else. No one blames her; Muslims only bow down in prayer to God, but
this was life or death, the IDPs around her, men and women, young and old, all
of them Muslim, understand this more than anyone.
The monks that asked to be worshipped were young. Noor
Bi was even beaten whilst she was holding her three-year-old son causing her to
drop him. Her son was saved by a Buddhist woman who sheltered him and took him
to safety.
The 15 women were put on a police truck and taken to a
police station. The police asked them to stay quiet, as they needed to go back
and rescue others.
Noor Bi’s account is not isolated. Sixteen-year-old
Muhammed (name has been changed for safety purposes) saw his friends killed in
front of his eyes.
The violence started on 20 March after an apparent
dispute at a gold shop led to mob attacks against the Muslim minority in
Meikhtila. Muhammed and his fellow students went into hiding when Buddhist
monks burnt down their boarding school. It was 9:30am the following morning
when the police arrived in three trucks to escort the students to safety.
Muhammed and the students were asked by the police to
get on the police trucks. There was only one problem though; they had to get to
the trucks and a mob stood between them and safety.
“I felt sick the last time I recalled this.” His eyes
look tired, he tells me he is not sleeping well and had a nightmare only last
night. “The Buddhists refused to let us walk through their area, even with the
police escort. We had to try and walk around, there were not enough police to
protect us.” His eyes are full of pain.
“We had to put out hands over our heads and bow our
heads and pay homage to the monks as we walked,” Muhammed raises his hands
above his head joining his palms together to illustrate what they were forced
to do. “They began to attack us. I saw my friends murdered.”
“They dragged Abu Bakr away as he attempted to get on
the truck, and began to beat him, he was still alive when they threw him in the
fire. He stood back up, and then they stabbed him in the stomach with a sword,
twisting it whilst it was in him.” He takes a deep breath, his hands tensed and
grasping each other.
“I can still see and hear it.” His family stands
around attempting to give him support, his uncle rubs his hand down his back,
trying to ease the suffering this young boy has had to endure. Muhammed told me
that there were a few new faces within the mob; he described them as having
long red hair.
One hundred people began that walk to the police
trucks. By the end of it 25 students and four teachers were murdered, beaten,
stabbed and burnt alive. Seventy-one survived but are mentally scarred for
life. There are pictures and many other eyewitness accounts that corroborate
the accounts.
The violence in Meikhtila sparked a week of
anti-Muslim riots throughout central Burma, causing widespread destruction of
homes, mosques and shops.
-Assed Baig is a freelance journalist that covers
current affairs and issues relating to radicalism and terrorism. Check out his
work at AssedBaig.com