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Authorities in Myanmar used excavators on Wednesday to hunt for 27 people buried for two days in a landslide, officials said, the latest disaster to hit a northern centre of the Southeast Asian nation's lucrative jade trade.
Deadly landslides during Myanmar's rainy season from May to October frequently bury informal scavengers, or handpickers, who scour large piles of earth for jade, production of which stood at $31 billion in 2014, advocacy group Global Witness says.
Small-scale miners who flouted repeated warnings in their search for jade at a defunct mining site were buried by muddy earth that slid off a cliff on Monday, said Kyaw Swar Aung, the administrator of Hpakant in Kachin state.
Myanmar violated its obligations to the United Nations child rights convention in its crackdown on the Rohingya that led to an exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from the minority community, legal experts have found.Children make up around half of the more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh since the start of a military crackdown last August.The U.N. has called the Myanmar military operations a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". Myanmar denies the allegation and has said it waged a legitimate counter-insurgency operation after Muslim militants attacked security posts.Turkish NGOs begin aid campaign for Rohingya MuslimsMyanmar officials planned genocide of Rohingya: NGOLegal experts commissioned by Save the Children Norway analysed research by U.N. bodies and international human rights groups who have alleged that mass killings, arson, and torture were conducted by Myanmar security forces on the Rohingya."The research finds that the response by the Myanmar Government to the August 2017 attacks on police posts, together with the ongoing discrimination against Rohingya, constitute violations of at least seven key articles of the (UN convention on the rights of the child)," their report said.Rohingya report more violence, persecution in Myanmar: UN investigatorsRohingya face triple threat: UN migration agencyThe analysis found both the government and the security forces at fault. The Myanmar government "took positive steps" to assist the military operations and there was no evidence to suggest it did anything to curtail or condemn the security forces' actions, the report said.Myanmar acceded to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child in 1991 and is bound to it by law. Representatives of the Myanmar government and military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The violations highlighted in the report include failure to protect children from violence, abuse, neglect, sexual and other exploitation, inhumane treatment and detention.It refers to "indiscriminate and extrajudicial killing of Rohingya children, and the torture, ill-treatment and gender-based violence" committed against them.The government's failure to conduct an independent investigation into the events following the August 2017 attacks, and ongoing discrimination against Rohingya children by denying them citizenship also are in violation of Myanmar's obligations to the child rights convention, the report said.The report was shared exclusively with Reuters ahead of its release next week."The list of violations we have found is not exhaustive," said Guy Goodwin-Gill, emeritus professor of international refugee law at Oxford University, who co-authored the report."It represents only the most serious violations and there most likely are several others." 
Myanmar violated UN child rights pact in Rohingya crackdown
"There were 4 inches of rain the night before it happened," he said, adding that no survivors or bodies had yet been pulled from the rubble. "Warnings had been issued twice not to do mining at that site."
Six backhoes were brought in on Tuesday to help with the search in the village of Ma Mone, said fire brigade official Aye Thein.
"We could not perform the search when it happened, since we did not have the machinery," he said.
Those trapped had come from nearby villages to pick through tailings for jade, he said. Experts say most of the stones are smuggled to neighbouring China.
About 100 people are estimated to have died in landslides this year in the Hpakant region, said Dashi La Seng, a lawmaker for the ruling National League for Democracy. A large landslide on July 14 killed at least 15 people and injured 45.
Myanmar authorities made “extensive and systematic preparations” for attacks on Rohingya civilians during the weeks and months before militants attacked police in August 2017, said a Bangkok-based human rights group in a report released Thursday.The Fortify Rights report finds “reasonable grounds” that crimes against the Rohingya constitute genocide and crimes against humanity, and identifies 22 Myanmar army and police officials who it says should be criminally investigated for their roles in atrocities.The report also calls on the UN Security Council to urgently refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC).“Genocide doesn’t happen spontaneously,” said Matthew Smith, chief executive officer at Fortify Rights.“Impunity for these crimes will pave the path for more violations and attacks in the future. The world can’t sit idly by and watch another genocide unfold, but right now, that’s exactly what’s happening,” he added.The report said at least 27 Myanmar army battalions, including up to 11,000 soldiers, along with at least three combat police battalions with an estimated 900 police personnel, were involved in the attacks in northern Rakhine state beginning on Aug. 25, 2017.“These crimes do not occur spontaneously or as isolated events; they require resources and decisions by people in positions of power,” the report said.The report is based on a 21-month investigation, including 254 interviews, done by Fortify Rights in Myanmar and Bangladesh.The rights group also interviewed Rohingya eyewitnesses and survivors, Myanmar military and police personnel, Bangladeshi military and government officials, and members and former members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the report said.-Violent crackdownSince Aug. 25, 2017, some 750,000 Rohingya, mostly children and women, have fled to bordering Bangladesh after Myanmar forces began a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to Amnesty International.At least 9,000 Rohingya were killed in Myanmar's Rakhine state from Aug. 25 to Sept. 24, 2017, according to Doctors Without Borders.In a report published last December, the global humanitarian group said the deaths of 71.7 percent or 6,700 Rohingya were caused by violence. They include 730 children below the age of 5.The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.Rohingya report more violence, persecution in Myanmar: UN investigators
Myanmar officials planned genocide of Rohingya: NGO
Dozens of people are reportedly missing and feared dead after a landslide hit a jade mining region in Myanmar's restive Kachin state on Saturday, according to officials and witnesses.The landslide occurred in a jade mine in Kachin’s Hpakant Township on Saturday (2 p.m. local time), said township administrator Kyaw Swar Aung.“[The] wall of an old pond of mud collapsed and muddy debris covered the area where many workers are reportedly working,” he told Anadolu Agency over the phone.He confirmed that the incident killed at least 13 people and injured around 40.Video: Rohingya girl shot by Myanmar army recounts horrors of escape“Thirteen bodies were recovered so far,” he said.“According to witnesses, many workers are still missing,” he said, adding local authorities and civil society organization (CSO) members continue to search for survivors.Htay Aung of a local CSO involved in the search and rescue efforts told Anadolu Agency that at least 30 people are believed to be still missing.“At least 100 people were working there when the landslide occurred,” he said.“However hope to find a survivor fades as the area has been completely under the muddy debris,” he said.Deadly landslides are a common hazard in Kachin’s jade and gold mining industry as people living off the industry’s waste pick their way across perilous mounds under the cover of darkness, driven by the hope they might find a chunk of jade worth thousands of dollars.At least 78 people were killed in previous 11 landslides in the area this year, according to the government.
Dozens feared dead in Myanmar’s jade mine landslide