A recent U.N.-backed investigation, released on Monday (September 29, 2025), has unveiled alarming findings: following the 2017 expulsion of the Muslim minority Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, the military systematically destroyed villages and mosques, subsequently converting these lands into security outposts.
The violence against the Rohingya community dramatically intensified in August 2017 when Myanmar’s military initiated operations in response to militant attacks. This military action drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their homes in the coastal state, an event the United Nations later characterized as a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing.’
Today, approximately 1.3 million Rohingya refugees are living in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, a stark consequence of these operations.
The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) report explicitly states, ‘Myanmar authorities systematically destroyed Rohingya villages, mosques, cemeteries and farmland. They had knowledge of Rohingya land rights and tenure through official records.’
The report’s conclusions are built upon a robust foundation of evidence, including first-hand witness accounts, advanced geospatial imagery, video footage, and official records and documentation.
While Myanmar’s military has previously denied committing genocide during the 2017 operations, acknowledging only that individual crimes might have occurred, this report paints a different picture. A spokesperson for the Myanmar military did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on these latest findings.
This investigation’s release precedes a crucial U.N. high-level meeting in New York, where officials are set to discuss the deteriorating conditions in Bangladeshi refugee camps and the ongoing stagnation of repatriation efforts.
The report further implicates, ‘Private companies and associated individuals played a direct role by providing machinery and labour to bulldoze villages and build infrastructure under state contracts.’
A specific instance cited is the village tract of Inn Din. Here, where Reuters previously reported the killing of 10 Rohingya men in 2018, the military demolished existing settlements to construct a new facility. ‘The base was built directly over the remains of Inn Din (East and Rakhine) villages, with cleared land replaced by new roads, permanent buildings, fortified compounds and two helipads,’ the report details.
Further complicating matters, the investigators themselves are facing financial challenges. The IIMM, established by the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2018 to probe serious international crimes in Myanmar since 2011, is grappling with significant funding cuts. These cuts, they warn, could impede their ability to continue gathering crucial evidence.
An IIMM spokesperson confirmed that their open-source investigations team is directly impacted and lacks funding to continue its work past the end of the year.
As if their past suffering wasn’t enough, the Rohingya now face renewed threats of violence and displacement amid ongoing fighting in Rakhine state, leading some members of the minority community to take up arms.
Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM, emphasized, ‘There is widespread agreement in the international community that Rohingya must be allowed to return home to Myanmar once conditions exist that allow for their safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable repatriation.’ However, he added a sobering truth: ‘in many cases their homes, even their villages, no longer exist.’