A/HRC/39/CRP.2 number of untrained villagers wielded sticks and knives. Some had improvised explosive devices. Twelve security personnel were killed. 751. The security forces’ response was immediate, within hours, brutal and grossly disproportionate. Ostensibly to eliminate the “terrorist threat” posed by ARSA, in the days and weeks that followed it encompassed hundreds of villages across Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung Townships. The operations targeted and terrorised the entire Rohingya population; the authorities called them “clearance operations”. They continued for more than two months, and for a considerable period after the Government claimed their completion on 5 September 2017.1615 During the course of the operation more than 40 per cent of all villages in northern Rakhine State were partially or totally destroyed. The most intense phase was the first three weeks when more than 80 per cent of the destruction was perpetrated. As a result, over 725,000 Rohingya had fled to Bangladesh by September 2018.1616 752. Despite the operations covering a broad geographic area, they were strikingly similar. Tatmadaw soldiers would attack a village in the early hours, frequently joined by other security forces, often by ethnic Rakhine men and sometimes men from other ethnic minorities. Elements of the Tatmadaw’s 33rd and 99th Light Infantry Divisions had been deployed to Rakhine State earlier in August. The operations were designed to instil immediate terror, with people woken by intense rapid weapons fire, explosions, or the shouts and screams of villagers. Structures were set ablaze and Tatmadaw soldiers fired their guns indiscriminately into houses and fields, and at villagers. 753. The nature, scale and organization of the operations suggests a level of preplanning and design on the part of the Tatmadaw leadership consistent with the vision of the Commander-in-Chief, Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, who stated at the height of the operations, “The Bengali problem was a long-standing one which has become an unfinished job despite the efforts of the previous governments to solve it. The government in office is taking great care in solving the problem.”1617 1. A human rights catastrophe 754. The Mission obtained a wealth of information on these events, including over 600 interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, satellite imagery, documents, photographs and videos. It examined many incidents in detail. It found consistent patterns of the most serious human rights violations and abuses. (a) Most serious incidents 755. The events in six villages or areas are set out in detail below, as verified by the Mission. Based on the information collected by the Mission, these are among the gravest incidents in the course of the “clearance operations”. Min Gyi (Tula Toli) 756. Min Gyi (known in Rohingya as Tula Toli) is a village tract located in Maungdaw Township in northern Rakhine State. With a population of approximately 4,300 Rohingya and 400 ethnic Rakhine1618, it is surrounded by a river on three sides. Across this river on the eastern side are two other village tracts, Wet Kyein (known in Rohingya as Wed Kayaung) and Pa Da Kar Ywar Thit (known in Rohingya as Diyal Toli). 1615 1616 1617 1618 178 “Speech delivered by Her Excellency Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar on Government’s efforts with regard to National Reconciliation and Peace” (Facebook post, 19 September 2017), https://www.facebook.com/state.counsellor/posts/speechdelivered-by-her-excellency-daw-aung-san-suu-kyi-state-counsellor-of-the-/1121130291354519. https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/ documents/files/iscg_situation_report_05_september_2018.pdf Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, “Entire government institutions and people must defend the country with strong patriotism” (Facebook post, 2 September 2017), now defunct, post on file with the Mission. V-064, V-065, V-066, V-067.