“This is the crack in the history of Myanmar’s military campaign against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups,” Smith told NBC News.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the two soldiers fled Myanmar and were brought to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is located.
NBC News could not independently confirm the soldiers’ statements but their testimony appears to match the accounts of human rights groups and Rohingya refugees.
The United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on Myanmar’s mission.
In his video testimony Pvt. Myo Win Tun says the same colonel who gave the original orders to his unit, Colonel Than Hitke, told the soldiers to “kill the Rohingya”.
Both soldiers, speaking without feeling in flat monotony, described how soldiers of all ranks raped a Rohingya woman before destroying the villages.
“We raped Muslim women before firing on them,” Pvt. Says Mayo Win Tun. “It was corporals, sergeants and officials who raped Muslim women. I even raped her at one point. ”
In the same region, another unit was carrying out massacres under similar orders against the Rohingya, another soldier Pvt. Zw Nine Tons of the 353rd Light Infantry Battalion.
“We wiped out about 20 Muslim villages,” Pvt. Zv Naing Tun says in the video. He says his unit of about 80 soldiers was told to “kill everyone” with the prospect of children and adults.
Pvt. Zhou Naing Tune said fellow soldiers and officers raped Rohingya women. The soldier says he did not participate because he was ordered to guard the area where the rapes took place.
“I was outside when they were raping me. I had to do surgery because I am private, ”he says. “I can’t remember all their names and ranks because there were so many of them.”
During the days, Pvt. Zhou Naingtan says his battalion attacked 20 villages in Mangdaw Township, including Dr. Tan Tan, Engan Chong, Kiat Yoo Pine, Xin Peng Nyar and Yu She Kyan.
He says he and fellow soldiers shot and killed seven Rohingya in Xin Peng Nyar. He also said in the video that they abducted 10 unarmed Rohingyas, tied them up with ropes, killed them and buried them in a mass grave. He and other private people dug a hole for the mass grave, he says.
An August 7, 2017 military operation against Rohingya Muslims forced an estimated 730,000 people to flee the country, mostly in neighboring Bangladesh.
An international fact-finding team appointed by the United Nations has concluded that top military commanders in Myanmar should be prosecuted for genocide and other crimes against humanity. Crimes include murder, rape, torture, sexual slavery, torture and slavery, investigators said.
According to the United Nations, about 200 Rohingya villages were demolished between 2017 and 2019.
