Sofian Khan
Rights groups fear that Myanmar’s military force abducted or killed the undercover journalists so that the persecution in Rakhine state remains unknown to the rest of the world. These reporters have been working to present the atrocities occurring against Rohingya. As they go missing, the militaries are suspected of deliberately targeting them.Since late 2012, young Rohingya volunteers had secretly been providing photos, videos and audio clips that support the militaries barbarism on the Muslim minority group in Myanmar. Human Rights group fear that to sabotage the networks and keep the rest of the world unconscious of what’s going in the Rakhine state, Myanmar military has killed and abducted most of the reporters – reports The Guardian.Mohammad Rafique, a Rohingya refugee community news portal editor claimed that, since the crackdown began, 95% of these reporters have gone missing. According to him, the Burmese security forces and Rakhine militia are still commending arson, rapes and killing in the Rohingya villages. But due to the dysfunctional mobile reporter community, now the rest of the world cannot reach to these incidents.The network of undercover citizen reporters was formed when Rohingya community leaders saw the Myanmar media’s silent reluctance to the violence. These undercover reporters then began to document incidents and sending reports out of the country. Now that most of them are missing, we are being starved of information from Rakhine now.A former mobile reporter Noor Hossain described the exotic experience extraordinary risks he faced to gather information. They used to hide themselves the moment the security forces approached the Rohingya villages. After they left following their raids, he and his fellow reporters would reappear on the scenes with mobile phones. Then they gathered the information of abuses, violence and other related incidents and deliver them out using the internet immediately. He also added that the security forces deployed in the areas are willing to kill any Rohingya who is found with a smartphone.