956 K. MULAJ the highest level of senior leadership, with perpetrators enjoying complete impunity (Zarni and Cowley 2014, 714) as has been the case ever since. The instalment of a nominally civilian government in Naypyidaw (in 2011), led by former general Thein Sein, did not bring about improvement of life for the Rohingya. On the contrary, the state-led propaganda against them continued, accompanied by hate and dehumanisation campaigns led by the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) and radical Buddhist monk organisations. Anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim publications were widespread and Muslim businesses were boycotted. The Rohingya were portrayed as ‘terrorists’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ who threaten to ‘swallow’ the country with their ‘incontrollable birth rates’ (UNHRC 2018, para. 25). The independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar found that the ensuing violence in June and October 2012, which affected 12 townships, ‘resulted from a plan to instigate violence and amplify tensions’ (UNHRC 2018, para. 25).7 Myanmar military and security forces either participated actively in violence or did not act to stop it (UNHRC 2018, para. 26). More than 140,000 Rohingya were displaced and were prevented from returning to their place of origin. Tens of thousands of the Rohingya escaped the country by boat, many perishing in the process, whilst approximately 150,000 Rohingya were internally displaced in IDP camps (Fiskesjö 2023, 132). Upon reviewing the evidence, Human Rights Watch (2012) concluded that the systematic, state-backed violence against the Rohingya was intended to remove them from their land in Rakhine State, and destroy them as a group. The independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar has argued that the 2012 violence ‘marked a turning point in Rakhine State’ as mistrust and fear between Rakhine and Rohingya grew (UNHRC 2018, para. 27). The violence that erupted in August 2017 and ensued in the following months was ‘the realisation of a disaster long in the making’ (UNHRC 2018, para. 31). Following an insurgency attack by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Myanmar border police (along the border with Bangladesh) (International Crisis Group 2023) on 25 August 2017, a preplanned, brutal military offensive – led by Tatmadaw – was launched swiftly. Ostensibly seeking to neutralise domestic security threats – in the shape of ARSA – Tatmadaw and other security forces executed ‘clearance operations’ which constituted a ‘human rights catastrophe’ (UNHRC 2018, para. 36, 52–54). In the following year, about 725,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh (UNHRC 2018, para. 33) – including approximately 500,000 children fleeing alone, separated from their parents or whose parents were killed by Tatmadaw (UNHRC 2018, para. 39). An estimated 25,000 Rohingya were reportedly dead by August 2018 (Ellis-Petersen 2018). Furthermore, large-scale sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls, and also men and boys, was perpetrated by Tatmadaw soldiers (UNHRC 2018, para. 38; Priddy et al. 2022, 223). Forty percent of all Rohingya settlements in northern Rakhine (at least 392 villages) were totally or partially destroyed (UNHRC 2018, para. 42, 50; Human Rights Watch 2020). The violent operations against the remaining Rohingya have continued intermittently, carried out by army forces and local militias. According to the International Crisis Group, approximately half a million Rohingya who live in squalid conditions in Rakhine are caught in the ongoing violence between the Arakan Army (an ethnic armed group led by Rakhine Buddhists) and the Myanmar military (International Crisis Group 2023). And, as this article goes to print, after nearly eight years since the 2017 wave of mass expulsion of the Rohingya from Myanmar, violence cascades to their refugee camps in Bangladesh where they live in growing immiseration, insecurity and neglect. In particular, Rohingya women – who