Rohingya women say soldiers raped them

Rohingya Muslims say Myanmar soldiers raped or sexually assaulted dozens of women in a remote village in the northwest of the country during the biggest upsurge in violence against the persecuted minority in four years.

Eight Rohingya women, all from U Shey Kya village in Rakhine State, described in detail how soldiers last week raided their homes, looted property and raped them at gun point.

Reuters interviewed three of the women in person and five by telephone, and spoke to human rights groups and community leaders. Not all the claims could be independently verified, including the total number of women assaulted.

Soldiers have poured into the Maungdaw area since Oct 9, after an insurgent group of Rohingyas that the government believes has links to Islamists overseas launched coordinated attacks on several border guard posts.

A forty-year-old woman from U Shey Kya told Reuters that four soldiers raped her and assaulted her 15-year-old daughter, while stealing jewelry and cash from the family.

"They took me inside the house. They tore my clothes and they took my head scarf off," the mother of seven told Reuters in an interview outside her home, a cramped bamboo hut. "Two men held me, one holding each arm, and another one held me by my hair from the back and they raped me."

Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Myanmar President Htin Kyaw, denied the allegations.