Inn Din Explained

Settlement Type:Village
Official Name:Inn Din
Pushpin Label Position:bottom
Pushpin Map:Myanmar
Pushpin Map Caption:Location in Myanmar (Burma)
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Name: Myanmar
Subdivision Type1:Division
Subdivision Name1:Rakhine State
Subdivision Type2:District
Subdivision Name2:Maungdaw District
Subdivision Type3:Township
Subdivision Name3:Maungdaw Township
Unit Pref:Imperial
Population:6,000+[1]
Population As Of:October 2017
Population Density Km2:auto
Coordinates:20.5128°N 92.58°W
Timezone:MMT
Utc Offset:+6.30

Inn Din is a village in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar.[2] [3] The village is in an area of mixed ethnicity, including Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine people.[4] In December 2017, a mass grave with ten Rohingya men was discovered near the Inn Din cemetery. In January 2018, the Myanmar military admitted that its soldiers and Rakhine paramilitaries had killed the ten Rohingyas in September of the previous year.[5]

Geography

The village is in the south of Rakhine State, located on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, at the western margin of Myanmar. Inn Din is near Maungdaw, just west of Rathedaung, and north of Sittwe. It rests on a peninsula that is a part of the Mayu and Kaladan (Kitsapanadi) river deltas.[6]

Economy

Some sources of income for Inn Din residents include betel tree and rice farming and fishing. Residents have opposed construction of a coal-fired power plant in the area, developed by a Thai affiliate company for the Toyo Engineering Corporation.[7]

2017 massacre

See main article: Inn Din massacre.

In December 2017, the Myanmar military declared that it would investigate a grave containing unidentified bodies.[8] The army announced the investigation in a Facebook post by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.[9]

On 10 January 2018, newspapers reported that Myanmar's military had admitted to killing Rohingya Muslims near the village on 2 September 2017. The military released the findings of its investigation in a second Facebook post, and stated that they had decided to kill Rohingya whom they had detained in the Inn Din cemetery. The Rohingya were subsequently buried in a mass grave at Inn Din. The military stated that its soldiers had helped villagers carry out a revenge attack on people they described as "Bengali terrorists".

Two Reuters journalists investigating evidence of the mass grave at the village were arrested in Yangon and sentenced to seven years in prison. An adviser for Amnesty International stated that satellite photos showed that Rohingya homes around Inn Din had been burned down in a coordinated fashion.

See also

Notes and References

  1. News: Lone. Wa. Oo. Kyaw Soe. Lewis. Simon. Slodkowski. Antoni. Massacre in Myanmar: One grave for 10 Rohingya men. 10 February 2018. Reuters. en.
  2. News: Taylor . Adam . In a first, Burmese military admits that soldiers killed Rohingya found in mass grave . 10 January 2018 . . 10 January 2018.
  3. News: The military announced on Dec. 18 that a mass grave containing 10 bodies had been found at the coastal village of Inn Din, about 50 km (30 miles) north of the state capital Sittwe. The army appointed a senior officer to investigate. . . . Myanmar military: Soldiers murdered 10 captured Rohingya 'terrorists' after Buddhists forced them into grave . 11 January 2018 . 10 January 2018.
  4. News: Kipgen . Nehginpao . A difficult year for Myanmar. 11 January 2018 . . 11 January 2018.
  5. News: Myanmar security forces took part in killing 10 Rohingya: Army . 10 January 2018 . . Straits Times . 10 January 2018.
  6. Web site: Arakan Research Center . Trek Thailand . 10 January 2018.
  7. Khai . Khen Suan . Japan's Official Development Assistance Diplomacy towards Burma in Post 2012 . International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies . 2015 . 10 . 10 January 2018 . University Academic Service Centre (UNISERV), Chiang Mai University.
  8. News: Rohingya crisis: Myanmar army admits killings . 10 January 2018 . . 10 January 2018.
  9. News: A Mass Grave Has Been Found in Western Myanmar, the Military Says . 10 January 2018 . . . 19 December 2017.