The Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, committed grave violations of the laws of war amounting to war crimes when it killed and wounded hundreds of Rohingya Muslims and torched their village in 2024, according to a Human Rights Watch report published yesterday.
The 56‑page report on the May 2, 2024 massacre at Hoyyar Siri in Buthidaung Township notes that details only began to surface more than a year later, after some survivors fled to Bangladesh and Malaysia.
“First, my son was hit by a bullet. Then my wife and baby daughter were shot, followed by my other daughter.”
Rohingya man recounts the 2024 massacre at Hoyyar Siri in Buthidaung Township
HRW interviewed several dozen witnesses and survivors, corroborated their accounts by satellite imagery, and analysed and verified photographs and videos.
According to the report, hostilities between Myanmar junta forces and the Arakan Army in Rakhine State resumed in November 2023. Both sides have been responsible for serious abuses, including targeted attacks on civilians, arson, and unlawful conscription.
In Hoyyar Siri, the Arakan Army, which has been fighting the Myanmar junta for autonomy, deliberately fired on unarmed villagers who were seeking safety after the armed group advanced on two Myanmar military bases in the vicinity.
Two years after the massacre, the survivors remain unable to return home, with many effectively detained.
The AA rejected responsibility for the massacre, saying its fighters only targeted military personnel or members of Rohingya armed groups, but the HRW findings contradict the AA claims.
“Its fighters first opened fire on a group of civilians leaving Hoyyar Siri, some of whom were waving white flags,” the report reads.
“First, my son was hit by a bullet,” said one man, adding, “Then my wife and baby daughter were shot, followed by my other daughter.”
The fighters continued to fire on the villagers as they turned back and attempted to flee. One woman said the fighters gathered a group of villagers in a paddy field.
“Within minutes they opened fire at us randomly, without saying anything,” the statement quoted the woman as saying.
“No one was spared. My husband was hit by a bullet. When the Arakan Army saw he was still alive, they came closer, firing at him several more times.”
The attacks on the Rohingya people took the Arakan Army’s armed conflict with Myanmar’s junta to a new level of depravity, said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at HRW, in a statement.
“Today, the massacre’s survivors are effectively detained by the Arakan Army, which has neither provided redress nor held those responsible to account.”
Human Rights Watch compiled a list of over 170 villagers, including about 90 children, who were killed or are still missing after the Hoyyar Siri massacre. The actual death toll is likely much higher.
It analysed and verified photographs and videos showing human remains at three separate sites in the village.
In February 2025, the Arakan Army ordered all surviving Hoyyar Siri residents to relocate to a makeshift camp nearby.
Villagers who later managed to flee to Bangladesh told HRW that they were denied freedom of movement, subjected to forced labour, and faced severe shortages of food and medical care.
Over the past decade, the Myanmar military has committed ethnic cleansing, genocidal acts, and other atrocities in Rakhine State that have forced over a million Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.
The massacre in Hoyyar Siri shows that returning to Rakhine State is still unsafe for Rohingya refugees, even in areas now controlled by the Arakan Army, HRW asserts.
It called for an immediate end to the attacks on civilians, the release of all civilians unlawfully detained, and the provision of redress to victims and their families. Both the Myanmar junta and AA should cooperate fully with independent investigations.
“Concerned governments should urgently press both the Myanmar junta and the Arakan Army to respect the rights of all communities in Rakhine State,” said HRW Deputy Asia Director Ganguly.
