Myanmar troops committed widespread gang rape against women and girls in their ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State, a new report from Human Rights Watch claims.

Released today, “All of My Body Was Pain’: Sexual Violence Against Rohingya Women and Girls in Burma” presents personal accounts of gang rape, as well as murder and acts of humiliation, committed by Myanmar soldiers.

“I was held down by six men and raped by five of them,” said Fatima Begum, 33, of Chut Pyin village in Rathedaung Township. “First, they [shot and] killed my brother…then they threw me to the side, and one man tore my lungi [sarong], grabbed me by the mouth and held me still. He stuck a knife into my side and kept it there while the men were raping me. That was how they kept me in place…I was trying to move, and [the wound] was bleeding more. They were threatening to shoot me.”

Several survivors reported walking for days with swollen and torn genitals to reach refugee camps in Bangladesh.

“Rape has been a prominent and devastating feature of the Burmese military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” said Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The Burmese military’s barbaric acts of violence have left countless women and girls brutally harmed and traumatized.”

These rapes have been part of a campaign that began on August 25, 2017, following a series of attacks on Myanmar security outposts by the Rohingya insurgent group ARSA. The Myanmar military’s response has consisted of killings, rapes, arbitrary arrests, and mass arson of homes in hundreds of predominantly Rohingya villages, forcing more than 600,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

Today’s report was based on interviews with 52 women, 29 of them rape survivors. Three of the survivors were under 18 years old when they were raped.

In every case, the rapists were uniformed members of Burmese security forces, almost all military personnel, though ethnic Rakhines were also reported to have sexually harassed Rohingya women and girls in coordination with the military.

Fifteen-year-old Hala Sadak, from Hathi Para village in Maungdaw Township, said soldiers had stripped her naked and dragged her from her home to a nearby tree where, she estimates, 10 men raped her from behind. She said: “They left me where I was…When my brother and sister came to get me, I was lying there on the ground. They thought I was dead.”

All but one of the rapes reported to Human Rights Watch were gang rapes.

Several of the victims interviewed said witnessing soldiers killing their family members was the most traumatic part of the attacks. They described soldiers bashing the heads of their young children against trees, throwing children and elderly parents into burning houses, and shooting their husbands.

Toyuba Yahya, from Hathi Para (Sin Thay Pyin) village in Maungdaw Township, said Myanmar soldiers killed two of her sons, aged two and three, by beating their heads against the trunk of a tree outside her home.

“My baby…I wanted him to be alive but he slowly died afterward,” she said.

Next they killed her daughter, and after that, seven soldiers in uniform raped her.

“My daughter, they picked her high up and then smashed her against the ground. She was killed. I do not know why they did that. [Now] I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. Instead: thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. I can’t rest,” she said.

According to humanitarian organizations working with refugees in Bangladesh, reported rapes likely make up a small fraction of the total rapes committed during the military campaign. Many rape victims were killed, and others want to avoid stigma. Two-thirds of the rape survivors interviewed by Human Rights Watch had not previously reported their rape to authorities or humanitarian organizations.

“One tragic dimension of this horrific crisis is that Rohingya women and girls are suffering profound physical and mental trauma without getting needed health care,” Wheeler said. “Bangladeshi authorities and aid agencies need to do more community outreach among the Rohingya to provide confidential spaces to report abuse and reduce stigma around sexual violence.”

Myanmar authorities have consistently denied allegation of rape committed by security forces. In December 2016, the office of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi responded to allegations of widespread rape of Rohingya women by calling the claims “Fake Rape.”

In September, the Rakhine State border affairs minister responded to similar accusations, saying: “Where is the proof? Look at those women who are making these claims – would anyone want to rape them?”

On Monday, the military’s Investigation Team released a report saying no innocent people were killed in the military operations in northern Rakhine and that “security forces did not commit shooting at innocent villagers and sexual violence and rape cases against women.”

Rights groups have called the report an attempt at “whitewashing” the military’s crimes and have called for an arms embargo on Myanmar, sanctions against military leaders, a referral to the International Criminal Court, and an independent investigation of the military’s actions by a UN-appointed fact-finding mission.

“UN bodies and member countries need to work together to press Burma to end the atrocities, ensure that those responsible are held to account, and address the massive problems facing the Rohingya, including victims of sexual violence,” Wheeler said. “The time for consequences is now, otherwise future Burmese military attacks on the Rohingya community appear inevitable.”