A/HRC/39/CRP.2 majority of those injured by landmines, media reports suggest that others may have been affected, including two Bangladeshi nationals.2752 1209. Once the “clearance operations” began, the Tatmadaw faced no notable resistance from ARSA, nor any threat from across the Bangladesh border. This indicates that the use of landmines was intended to target fleeing Rohingya civilians and to prevent those who had already left from returning. 1210. On 6 September 2017, it was reported that Bangladesh filed a formal complaint with Myanmar regarding its use of mines. 2753 On 21 September 2017, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina informed the United Nations General Assembly that: We are horrified to see that the Myanmar authorities are laying landmines along their stretch of the border to prevent the Rohingya from returning to Myanmar.2754 1211. Only five months earlier, in April 2017, it was reported that the Myanmar and Bangladesh governments had agreed to remove landmines and IEDs from the border area. 2755 By August, however, the Tatmadaw was laying landmines along the border, not removing them. 1212. Displaced Rohingya living in the “zero point” area in the months following 25 August 2017 managed to dig up some landmines with bamboo sticks. 2756 Photographs of the mines excavated by Rohingya, subsequently analysed, confirm that at least some of these are PMN1 type, which Myanmar is known to produce and purchase and which the Tatmadaw is known to use.2757 The severity of wounds observed is also consistent with the use of PMN-1 type landmines.2758 It has been reported that the Tatmadaw has claimed that all mines in the region had been planted more than 20 years ago. 2759 However, this claim is difficult to reconcile with information that the Tatmadaw used anti-personnel landmines in its military operations in Rakhine State,2760 and with first-hand accounts of the Tatmadaw planting the mines during the “clearance operations”. 1213. Furthermore, the first mine explosion was reported in early September 2017, less than two weeks after the “clearance operations” had commenced, and after at least 400,000 Rohingya had already crossed into Bangladesh, including by using the crossing points where landmine explosions were subsequently recorded.2761 The locations where detonations occurred had been regularly used by Rohingya villagers prior to the 2017 “clearance operations”,2762 with no blasts or injuries reported. 1214. As such, the Mission has reasonable grounds to conclude that landmines were planted by the Tatmadaw, both in the border regions as well as within northern Rakhine State, as part of the “clearance operations” with the intended or foreseeable effect of injuring or killing Rohingya civilians fleeing to Bangladesh. Further, it seems likely that new anti-personnel 2752 2753 2754 2755 2756 2757 2758 2759 2760 2761 2762 286 S. Bashu Das “Bangladeshi among Rohingya refugees killed by landmines at Bandarban border,” (Dhaka Tribune, 13 September 2017); Radio Free Asia: “Bangladesh: Landmine Kills Buddhist Trying to Enter Myanmar”, (15 March 2018). K.N. Dash, “Bangladesh protests over Myanmar’s suspected landmine use near border,” (Reuters, 6 September 2017. Statement of H.E. Ms. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh to the 72 nd General Assembly, available at https://gadebate.un.org/en/72/bangladesh V-183, V-201. CI-148, V-067, V-087. Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor, Myanmar Burma: Mine Ban Policy, 16 November 2016, footnotes 40 & 42 (indicating Myanmar’s acquisition and use of foreign-produced landmines including the PMN type landmine and the China Type-58, which is similar to the PMN; as well as the domestic production of what Myanmar calls the MM2, a copy of the China Type-58). V-067. K.N. Das, “Bangladesh Protests of Myanmar’s Suspected Landmine Use Near Border” (Reuters, 6 September 2017). V-067, V-184, V-185, V-186, V-187, V-188. QM-001. BI-004, QM-001.