The American "New York Times" newspaper quoted the testimony of two Myanmar soldiers who gave it via video, in which they confessed to the massacres committed by the army of this (Southeast Asian) country against the Rohingya Muslim minority, and its attempt to completely annihilate it.

In a report published in its issue today, the newspaper stated the confessions of the two soldiers that they were involved in a campaign of executions of Rohingya and their burial in mass graves, the wiping of entire villages from existence and the occurrence of rape.

Soldier Mayo Win Ton said in his video testimony that in August 2017 he received orders from his commander to "shoot at everyone you see and everything you hear."

He added that he obeyed orders and participated in the massacre in which 30 Rohingya Muslims were killed, and were buried in a mass grave near a communications tower and a military base.

In turn, the second soldier - named Zhao Ning Ton - said that he and his comrades in another battalion had complied with similar orders from their commander to "kill everyone you see, whether they were children or men." This happened at the same time, and in a town close to that massacre that the soldier revealed. the first.

"We exterminated about 20 villages, and threw the bodies into a mass grave," Zhao Tun added.

The newspaper stated in its report that the testimony of the two soldiers via videotape, which was recorded by a rebel militia, is the first recognition of its kind by members of the Myanmar armed forces, officially known as "Tatmadaw", for involvement in what UN officials describe as a "genocide campaign" against The Rohingya Muslim minority.

The newspaper report revealed that the two soldiers - who managed to escape from Myanmar last month - were transferred the day before Monday to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court opened a case to verify whether the leaders of Myanmar's "Tatmadaw" army had committed large-scale crimes against the Rohingya.

The atrocities reported by the two soldiers are consistent with evidence of serious human rights violations, collected from more than a million Rohingya who have sought refuge in neighboring Bangladesh.

According to the New York Times, what distinguishes the testimony of the two soldiers is that it came from the perpetrators, not the victims.

The soldiers ’account matches the descriptions made by dozens of witnesses, observers, Rohingya refugees, people of Rakhine State (formerly Arakan), government soldiers (Tatmadaw) and local politicians.

Several villagers confirmed their knowledge of the whereabouts of the mass graves included in the testimony of the two soldiers, which is evidence that will be used in the ICC investigations and other legal procedures.

The Myanmar government has repeatedly denied any mass graves in Rakhine State.

The crimes that the two soldiers say their infantry battalions and other security forces have committed are only part of a long campaign against the Rohingya.

The New York Times reports that these battalions and forces have killed about 150 civilians and destroyed dozens of villages.

The American newspaper confirms that these crimes are being committed as part of a coordinated and deliberate operation to exterminate one ethnic minority, the Muslim Rohingya.

Médecins Sans Frontières estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya - including 730 children - died in violent means between late August and late September 2017.

The United Nations says that nearly 200 Rohingya settlements were completely wiped out between 2017 and 2019.