Tula Toli Massacre: Alleged Witnesses

Tula Toli Massacre: Alleged Witnesses
January 3, 2017
(incomplete)
last edits Jan. 4, Feb. 18

My point here is ... at least just for reference, to see the list, how big it is, what patterns emerge, select quotes and inconsistencies ... as usual, to cast doubt where mainstream establishment journalists apparently aren't allowed to but should have already. 

The size is impressive. Out of an initial group said to be between 1,000 and 2,000 people, everyone agrees a majority died and only a "handful" made it out. But was it 20, 100, or 1,000 who were lucky enough? About 20, and exactly 18, are specified numbers of survivors. Yet with fairly little unidentified overlap, I think, I have 80 entries here.

That's for people who survived and spoke to the media, and that I could find sitting here on the Internet. I also include some people they mention/speak for, but who haven't necessarily talked to the media themselves. This should probably be less than half the total of people who left that village, and usually you expect no more than about one in ten to get interviewed. It'll be higher in a case like this. That could mean anywhere from 160 to 800 people left alive, or maybe even more, like everyone in town, that was Rohingya anyway.

A few of these were just near enough to be witnesses, but the vast majority claim to be up-close observers of evil who miraculously survived, despite a concerted effort, or two or three, to kill them. Most managed to survive with about one other family member, but all mention losing someone, and most of them say their entire families were wiped out. One woman says she lost 60 members of her extended family. I don't know if it's even a valid clue, but the majority of surviving women - and none of the men - have the family name "Begum." 

So it's a massive pile of emotive and propagandistic claims, none of which is well-supported by the available video evidence. They agree on details like women being dragged to huts and raped, and the huts being set on fire, killing almost all of them. In fact, almost everyone claims to have seen most steps in that process, all playing out on a mother or wife, none of whom lived. Dozens of women claim to have smashed out of the burning rape huts after playing dead (fuller count and perhaps a short comparative post forthcoming). Conversely, these mostly all lost their husbands and all children or, more commonly, all but one child, who was also in the rape hut. Things like this seem highly suspicious to me - less like reality than like a bunch of little stories based on the same agreed script, crafted for maximum drama at the expense of the Myanmar's demonized government (and its army, and Buddhist community, territorial integrity, etc. Also, at the expense of justice, and our intelligence...)

The record is also rife with suspicious patterns of poorly-coordinated fakery. So far I've spotted one likely dead husband who also speaks as a witness (see entry 12 vs. 30). Several names seem recycled on different victims (a couple Nurul Amins, and a few other confusing Nuruls). (I suppose it might be a super-common name around there, but this common? And as Islamists they won't take husband's names, but where are all their brothers and fathers named Begum? They all got a different family name? Does that vary by gender there? Confusion, perhaps, on that front.)

And the same may go for stories - this will take more analysis. Some story cross-over may be with other massacres, and likely missed, but entry 73 is a likely case I caught - two 20-year old one-name women with similar names were among a "handful" to survive two massacres, where they each saw their husband killed the same way: "They seized him by the beard and cut his throat,” (same exact wording even). 76/77 may also count - two women each survived a massacre with rape and the killing of their own kids, then ran across an abandoned boy, aged 8 or 9, and took him with her. 

About 100 Miracle Survivors

of the alleged Tula Toli Massacre!

Spread the good news

and inspiring tales of survival!

Notes Jan. 4: a couple of duplicate entries stricken out - Numbering is already messed up - will revise it later, when I'm done correlating...

Amnesty International witnesses

1. Shafiqur Rahman, 29, said the guns were “part iron, part wood” (because he's definitely no militant, right?) and described the kind of patch soldiers wear around there, saying the killers wore it.
2. C.B., a 15-year-old girl "everyone was forced to crouch down, facing forward; she said the soldiers then took many of the women and young children to a nearby ditch, where the water went up to her knees" ... "I was in and out of consciousness, but I was looking outside, and saw [them set the fire]. They used matchsticks and dried hay, I saw it with my own eyes… The roof was falling down – pieces of  the roof. A few of us were able to push out of the bamboo [exterior]. [But] my mother and sister were not able to move. They had been beaten so much they were weak. They died that day…"
3. O.B., 20 was one of the women separated out “I saw when they shot the men. I heard the gunshots. We saw the people dying. They were shooting for a long time.” "...while she was being held in the ditch, soldiers marched off two of her sisters. She has not seen them since. O.B. was then taken with five other women and their children to an abandoned house in the Rohingya part of the village" (children killed? Not mentioned. "an elderly woman in the group was the only one not raped. ... “After we were raped, we were beaten with wooden sticks.” “From one corner, they set the fire. I looked around and in the other corner, I saw there was some weak fencing in the bamboo. I pushed through. The soldiers were still out there, but a bit away. I went to the hillside." (The B on OB and CB probably stands for Begum, the most common family name for females))
4. S.K., 30 (woman)  All details say this is Mumtaz Begum, and shouldn't be counted twice. Though oddly, SK aren't her initials (or are they?). “The men were shot dead. They separated us and targeted the men and shot them. Some women and children were also shot.” “she and many other women and younger children were taken to a ditch, where they were forced to stand in knee-deep water: "From there, they took the women in groups to different houses. I was taken to a Rohingya house. There were five of us [women]," They were robbed and beaten, all their children brought with were killed. "They first hit us in the head, to make us weak. Then they hit us [in the vagina] with the wooden sticks. Then they raped us. A different soldier for each [woman].”97 S.K. said the soldiers then left and closed the door. They set fire to the house ... Her 7-year-old daughter, Rozia, who had survived the soldiers’ beatings, found a weak point in the house’s bamboo siding, and S.K. followed her. “I was burned all over,” ... it was around dusk when they escaped; they saw soldiers standing in the distance, and fled unseen to a rice field." 
5. Mohamed Suleiman, a 40-year-old mullah, broke down crying as he counted off six people in his family who were killed: his wife, Lila Begum, 35;..." He and some others "had been in the back of the group, near the river, which allowed them to survive by jumping in and swimming across to the village of Wet Kyein."
6. Nurul Amin, 47, swam to safety, "my heart was in the village… I could see the bodies falling" - wife and 7 children were killed here, not in another village (see Nurul Amin, 33) “My world is finished,” he said. (report given this title)
7-10 - four others: they spoke to 10 witnesses, those 6 plus "three other men and one 14-year-old girl interviewed by Amnesty International" who say they swam across with Nurul Amin Mohamed Suleiman. No account details given. May overlap... those with initials may overlap with other entries. Even people using different names might overlap, for that matter.

Human Rights Watch, December report
11. Hamid Musaem, 29: day laborer from Dual Toli (fled to Tula Toli, survived that too)
12. Khotija, 42: "Khotija said she lost her entire family in the massacre. Her elderly father, Abu Shama, and husband, Nur Kobir, 50, died with the men on the beach." (see next batch, #30) Khotija "said that on August 29, a military helicopter had landed in a nearby Rakhine village, and that the helicopter returned with the security forces on August 30"
13. Omar Ali: said that he had witnessed the landing of the helicopter and the distribution of weapons and uniforms to the Rakhine villagers from the helicopter.
14. Rajuma Begum, 20,
15. Rajuma Khatoum, 35
16. Hafez Mohammed Akram, 30
17. Mohammed Zakaria, 51
18. Hassina Begum, 20 The army forced Hasina and many other women to stand waist-deep in water and watch while soldiers dug a pit to burn the bodies of those they had killed. She tried to hide her infant daughter under her shawl, but a soldier noticed the baby, snatched her away, and tossed her into the fire." Her and her sister-in-law both escaped their rape hut, with burns/injuries.
19. Asma, 18: her sister-in-law. 
20. Shawfika, 24: (alt. Shofika) played dead, broke out of burning rape hut ("Shawfika was one of 18 survivors of the Tula Toli massacre" per Epoch Times)
21. “Fatima” (not her real name), 15
22. “Abdulaziz” (not his real name), 9 who fled to Bangladesh with his younger brother “Zahid,” 6,
23. “Ali” (not his real name), 10 (spoken for by others)
24. Mohammed Suleiman, 43, (see 5)
25. Mohammed Amin, 25
26. Nur Mohammed, 19
27. Mohammed Ayas, 16, "said he saved his life by swimming across the river when the shooting started. He was wounded while running toward the river, but two men helped him cross and make it to the other side"
-- one other: HRW spoke to 18 witnesses, but I only found details from those 17. So #18 may well collapse with another entry.

BBC Newsnight:

28. Mohamed Suleiman, (see 5)

29. his daughter

30. Noor Kawbir: appears possibly 50 years old. A Nur Kobir, 50 was married to "Khotija" above, but he died... maybe it was a mix-up, and a happy reunion awaits?

31. Anora Begum, watched her neighbor's 12 children killed and thrown in the river - said to be the same pale children shown washing up on video.

32. Nabi Hussein (older man)- lost several family but fled alive, places a supposed call to the village chief who was clearly in on the massacre.

The Guardian

33. Khald Hossein, 29, labourer - people made to live on the back days before the event
34. Petam Ali, 30, rice distributor - his was the first home burned at 3:30 am
35. Kabir Ahmed, 65, rice farmer
36. Zahir Ahmed, 55, rice farmer (Kabir’s brother)
37. Mohammed Idriss, 35

Frontier Myanmar 

38. Amin Khartoum, 22,
39. Mohammed Rashid, 50

40. Mohammed Islam, 40, was coming back from another town, not rounded up, but saw the massacre from a hill nearby - his wife and 3 kids were killed

41. Islam's 10-year-old daughter Nor Kaida was in the village, with the women in the water. She swam across the river and escaped.

42. Haj Jaford Alam, 75, former village administrator. "One of the burned houses belonged to Haj Jaford Alam, 75. Many of the relatives he shared it with were killed in the attacks, he said." He wants to go back, but only when they have their rights restored.

Dakha Tribune

43. Nurul Huq, 65: (other say and I prefer, Haq) - source for the article's title: “There is no Rohingya left in Tulatoli.”

44. Mohammed Nasir: (apparently not the same Mohammed Nasir who was hit in the elbow running from the Maung Nu massacre 3 days earlier?) "Nasir himself had escaped to a nearby hillock with his family. From his vantage point and before he left for Bangladesh later that day, he recounted how “bodies were thrown into large pits near the river, covered in straw, doused in petrol and torched.”"

45. Zahid: “I have lost nine family members including my wife, two sons, two young sisters, my brother’s wife and son” "Zahid described in disturbing detail how many of the women villagers lost their lives. It is a gruesome scenario which suggests the military were vacillating about how exactly to kill the women. “Many of the women were near the river. After the military had torched the homes, they told the women to get out of the river and sit down on the bank. Then they changed their minds and ordered them to stand up. Then they again ordered them to sit down. Finally they said stand up and form a line. They then shouted at the women to run.

As they ran, they brush fired them. After the shooting, around 30 women survived. They told these women to wait in the water again. And from this group of 30, they would take 5 women at a time into huts to rape them. After raping them, they were robbed off their jewellery, and then beaten to death and the huts set on fire. ... Four women survived this ordeal according to Nasir. These women are now in Kutupalong MSF clinic with burns and other injuries. "

46. his 10-year-old nephew Osman

-- Nurul Amin (see #6, probably, and.or #81)
-- Shofika, Nurul Amin's niece: see #20. "Nurul Amin’s niece, Shofika, is one of the (four) victims receiving care at the MSF clinic. He simply cannot believe that she is alive. He told me “you can see her brain such is the size of the fracture in her skull, and she has another wound down one side of her body. I do not know how she is still with us”. 

"As she made her escape, she saw children hiding in the paddy fields. She said “The military caught these children, put them flat on the floor and drove long knives into their chests and their stomachs. The lifeless bodies were thrown in the river.”  "With my own eyes, I saw the dead bodies of not less than 300 small kids and about 200 women of my age"

Some Wounded Women
47. Sobika lost 10 family members, suffered burns  (a video)

IBT, Allison Joyce interviews and photos.
48. Mumtaz Begum, 30, "They shot her husband in front of her and as he lay dying, he asked the military for some water. They responded by shooting him again, and he died."
"Then the military took her and five other women to a house, with some of their children ..." killed most kids, raped the women, set the house on fire. "Mumtaz crawled through the flames and her clothes caught fire and the roof caved in, but she was the only woman who managed to escape. The other five women burned to death." (weren't killed, just couldn't move? "She hid in the forest until a group of people found her and carried her to the border and into Bangladesh."

49. her daughter Razia, 7 "They started raping [Mumtaz] and the other women and when the children screamed, they hit them in the head with machetes. They hit one of her sons, splitting his skull open, and he died. They also hit her daughter, but she survived and escaped the house."
50. Roshida Begum, 22, (see also Vice News)

51. Dildar Begum, 30 (not this Didar Begum, age 30 - diff. face and story, different village and time of day, etc.)

52. her daughter (Nurkalima, 10, per Epoch Times)

-- Sunuara, 25, (included in report, but from Boulibazar, not Tula Toli) 

53. Minwara Begum, 17 - was shot, then raped in a hut, the fire burned her ropes but not here, and she was able to escape - 2 other women were still alive but she couldn't carry them.  (details from Daily Mail)

CNN video
- Nurul Haq (see 43)
54. Rehana Begum: Rehana Begum, said she was also told to leave her home and stay near the river. ""The soldiers rounded them up on the river bank and separated the men from the women. We couldn't escape. Many children were shot and fell on their faces," she recalls. "Those lying on the ground were picked up and chopped and thrown into the river." (transcript) "
- Mumtaz (see 48)  To CNN she claimed to have been shot and left for dead in a pile of bodies, after her husband was killed. Then she was found alive, and dragged to a raping hut, along with some living children (who were not on that pile, but somehow reunited to die with her?). Two of her younger kids were brutally killed there, and they tried to kill Razia too. Then Mumtaz says she was beaten, raped, and left for dead again, as they lit up the hut. But she woke up with the help of Razia noticing her finger was on fire, and escaped from the burning hut, smashing through the wall to find Razia already outside. Both managed to flee the scene without being shot, and made it to Bangladesh to tell this story. (her other accounts skip the first attempted killing that left her in the pile, and have her just waiting in the water before the hut, like usual)

Al-Jazeera
-- Rajuma Begum, 20 (see 14) "survived the August 30 massacre in Tula Toli, believed to have been one of the most brutal incidents of Myanmar army violence. Villagers were taken to a beach by the river where the men were separated from the women and children and then gunned down, hacked to death and bayoneted."
Rajuma was holding her son, Mohammed Saddique, in her arms, when four or five soldiers began taking women away in groups of five to seven.
"They took me along with another four women inside a house," Rajuma recounted, speaking at a school in Kutupalong refugee camp.
"They ripped my son from my arms and threw him [on the ground] and cut his throat," she said, before burying her head in her hands and starting to wail.

-- Rajuma (see 14) (NYT)

55. an old lady https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPdj_fRtW3s
56. a young guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rejjzPsnzbg&
57. older woman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6xzv7GqsVc
58. A younger woman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfw2K0-3RUU&t=31s
59-66. At least 8 women of different ages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO_3bdJCIbg
67. At least one man I don't recognize here (2 others and a child I do... Mohamed Suleiman and his daughter) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ipCq5AEsY8
(likely overlap in this section)

Time
68. Mohamed Rafiq: "“People were shot in the chest, stomach, legs, face, head, everywhere,” said Mohammed Rafiq from Min Gyi village, also known as Tula Toli, in Maungdaw Township. Trembling as he recalled the events, he told me soldiers gathered a large group on the banks of a local river and opened fire. “They poured fuel on the bodies and burned them.” Multiple survivors from his village described how perpetrators slit throats, raped women, and burned “piles” of victims, including infant children. Eyewitnesses estimated a death toll of hundreds in that village alone."
Presumably not the same wounded Mohammed Rafique, 25, who survived the wrong day Maung Nu massacre (WaPo)


CetusNews
69-72. Sukhutara, 12, her uncle Jahur Alam and his wife Nosima, and their baby. Sukhutara: "“The military shot my father, and then as he lay on the ground a soldier cut his throat,” she said." She "sobbed as she described how troops dragged her mother and several other women into a hut. She heard screams from inside. Then the soldiers came out and set the hut ablaze." And then she didn't die. ?? "Tulatoli, the village where Sukhutara lived, was home to between 4,000 and 5,000 people before the massacre. It was victim to among the worst violence in the military’s campaign, with witnesses saying that at least several hundred people were killed." (on Aug. 30)

Dakha Tribune
73, 74. Rafiqa, 20, her child: "The blow fell hardest on villages like Tulatoli in northern Rakhine. Rafiqa, a 20-year-old Rohingya woman who goes by one name, said she was feeding her baby on the morning of August 30 when the army swept in. ... Rafiqa said soldiers dragged young women into huts to be raped and then set fire to the huts. She doesn’t know how many villagers were killed that day but says only a handful made it out alive. Her husband was among the dead. “They seized him by the beard and cut his throat,” she said. Rafiqa said she crawled into the bushes with her child and after the soldiers left, joined other villagers on a three-day trek to Bangladesh. (side-note: another article says "Rizwana, 20 years old, said her village, Hasurata, was attacked by the army and Rakhine militia on Sept. 16. She said only a handful of villagers made it out. Her husband was among the dead. “They seized him by the beard and cut his throat,” she said." How does that happen? Same age even...)

Sabrag India
75. Nurul Hakim (not Nurul Amin, but maybe Nurul Haq?) "was among about 20 or so fortunate enough to have survived the massacre. He told this correspondent that the soldiers had picked out all the beautiful teenagers and killed them. “They picked up beautiful girls from our village between 12 and 20 years old, then they were tortured and raped by the Army and the Rakhine,” he said. "Those girls were killed and then they locked them in a house and set fire to it,” he said."

SMH
76. Almas Khatun, 40 "pulls a pink shawl from her face to reveal scars across her cheek and throat.
“I saw my family killed with my own eyes,” says the softly spoken 40-year-old survivor of Tula Toli, the most horrific massacre in a pogrom of indiscriminate killing, mass rape and arson targeting Rohingya Muslim civilians in Myanmar.
Almas says that every night she sees in her nightmares a soldier pulling
 her three-month-old baby from her lap and slashing open his stomach, moments before her house was set alight.
“They shot my old father, they put a log of wood in his mouth and then slit his throat,” Almas says, wiping tears from her eyes. “I keep thinking about my children. I couldn’t save them. They killed seven of my children, my husband and his two brothers.” Almas says 60 of her relatives who were living in three houses in the village are dead. “Some were slaughtered by monks.”
77. Mansur Alam, 8 who also survived Tula Toli, tells us in a separate interview outside a makeshift Muslim school, on a hilltop overlooking the camps, that he saw monks slashing and shooting people in the village, including his own parents, as he hid in bushes. “The monks were in the forest and one slashed me on the head with a kirji (farming sickle),” he says, pulling apart his hair to reveal a scar across his scalp.Almas has now adopted Mansur as her son. (side-note: "F" - survivor of another incident and not listed here, also sort-of adopted a boy, aged 9, that she ran across abandoned after having her own kids killed and surviving rape. (see here))  

Stripes
78, 79. Shamsul, 8, and Jafar, 11: "Jafar said he took refuge on a small hill overlooking his house and watched as soldiers beat his mother, Monira, and three of his siblings, Somuda, 15, Khurshid, 7, and Shalida, 3 months. They pushed them into the house, barricaded the door and set the structure on fire. His family was burned alive inside, Jafar said. ... "They are only alive thanks to Allah," said Ali Mia, a local leader. "God saved them.""

Telegraph, September 9
80. Nurul Amin, 33, (should not be Nurul Amin, 47 as above) "said such a promise [of no attack] persuaded him to take refuge in the settlement of Tula Toli, a mixed Rakhine and Rohingya village, after witnessing vigilantes and soldiers massacre his wife, their three children, and his mother and mother-in-law in the neighbouring village of Garatabil on August 28." (where the hell is that? Sounds kind of like Wet Kyein/Dual Toli across the river, but a different name) (note: Nurul Amin, 33, had his family killed right there in Tula Toli) “I watched it from behind a tree, but there was nothing I could do. I saw little children. They threw the children into the burning houses.” “I didn’t try to go to Bangladesh then, because there was nowhere to run to." Bangladesh would be invented soon. "And in Tula Toli the village chairman said ‘stay here, I am here and I promise you will be safe’,” he said. Mr Amin said he did not know whether the chairman, an ethnic Rakhine, had prior knowledge of a similar attack that hit that village two days later." But probably. Naiive Mr. Amin survived that massacre too, and deicded to be fooled no more, fled to Bangladesh.
-- Mohammad Islam (see #40) "a native of Tula Toli who said he had received the same assurances of safety, said there was no question of the official’s involvement: “When I next saw him he was wearing the uniform of the military. He entered the village with them.” (these are people who'd like to see entry 42, the former village administrator, get his old job back instead of this mass-murderer who replaced him.)

81. Mohammed Shofique, 11 (Middle East Monitor) Taken with some mother and aunt into a house, hit on the head with a sword, so he passed out (he's careful to show the scar and let the reporter feel it.) When he woke up, his mother had her throat cut, dead. "the boy ran from the house when he realised it was on fire. As the flames ripped through the building, Mohammed ran towards nearby paddy fields and hid there until the following morning."

82. Rashid Ullah, middle-aged bearded guy, appears in this video on Facebook: lost 17 family members (per titles). Account in Rohingya, not translated. Very calm factual delivery of details.  May not be an actual miracle survivor, but I suspect he does claim this like usual, so he can say he saw it with his own eyes, which matters a lot when you're talking to an Islamist who's encouraged to lie to infidels to further the jihad. Post claims "The statement on Massacre of Tulatuli. According to eyewitness 1800 hundreds of Rohingyas were massacred by Myanmar terrorist regime and notorious Mogh (Rakhine) extremists" That is exactly in line with the story told by all these others (that is 1800, not "1800 hundreds"). That even sounds like the right death toll everyone agrees on. It's preposterous, but they're consistent about it.

83 and 84. These two kids? Poster says Tula toli, video says DiyolToli, which could be Dual Toli/Wet Kyein ie the same massacre and/or the one right before across the river. A boy and a girl both lived, parents shot, out in the field, not at the beach or locked in a burning hut...  https://twitter.com/mir_sidiquee/status/920249425460686848
https://twitter.com/IslamRohingya/status/920582425599766528

85 Rabiya Hatu, older woman from Tula Toli, says her daughter and niece were raped and killed https://twitter.com/doamuslims/status/916732160526217216

86-88 The old woman is listed, but at least 3 unfamiliar men speak here - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x64dxfp

-?- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rejjzPsnzbg
Arakan Times interview a Rohingya Man of Tula Toli village, Maungdaw north - no subtitles of ruther details. Is he listed already?

89 Ruhul Amin https://twitter.com/mir_sidiquee/status/956411626357493760
MIR AHMED SIDIQUEE
‏https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXhnQa3NEX8&feature=youtu.be
RNN interviews Ruhul Amin of Tulatuli
Ruhul Amin an eye-witness and survived person of Tulatoli Carnage

90, 91. Rafiq, 14, + little brother - Rafiq lost his parents and five of his siblings at Tula Toli
UNICEF, Feb. 15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxOBVPWvwwU
"he fled to Bangladesh alone" - describes "WE had to leave OUR home and everything WE had."
(but separately - he found his younger brother in camp a week later.) Only other detail: the soldiers took all the women and girls to a single house, "they took five at a time and stayed for half an hour" doing who knows what. "After a while they set the house on fire" with the girls still inside. He saw that, one house burning. after watching all of the 30-minute sessions unfold inside the one house...  should take between 3 and 7 hours or more, depending (see below)

-?-, -?- A man and a woman speaking unnamed on video shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxOBVPWvwwU, spamped vision:Amnesty International possibly listed already.

---
Add Jan. 4:
Did Half the rape Hut Women survive?
At least 10 women, maybe 14, and 3 4 children escaped, with some other accounts needing checked. So this is an incomplete but likely close minimum. If every one who escaped also spoke to the media. Otherwise there could be more.
Original story, from Mohammed Nasir, watching from a nearby hill, after swimming the river and climbing the hill in time: he saw about 30 women were made to stand in the water, no more than this. "And from this group of 30, they would take 5 women at a time into huts to rape them. ... then beaten to death and the huts set on fire. ... Four women survived this ordeal according to Nasir. These women are now in Kutupalong MSF clinic with burns and other injuries." So about 26 women (plus their children, who seem to go as unmentioned appendages of the women) died.

30 divided by five would be about six groups of women, and their children, and so about six rape houses. Some groups were said to be of 6, so it's like 5 or 6 groups. About 2/3 of these rape houses on average yielded a surviving woman, for four woman total (and maybe some children?) escaping. 

But from what's above and a bit more checking, here's who I found claiming to survive the ordeal from the inside, who managed to survive the assault and attempted murder, and escape the burning hut, and avoid being shot after that, and to make it to safety and to tell the story.

1) Rajuma Begum, 20

2) Mumtaz Begum 30 SK (not initials)

2a) her daughter (same hut)

3) Hassina Begum, 20  (sisters-in-laws, same hut)

4) Asma, 18 (sisters-in-laws, same hut)

5) Shawfika, 24

6) Sobika

7) Roshida Begum (let's say they'e the others in H2)

8) Dildar/Didar? Begum

8a)- her daughter  (same hut)

9) Minwara Begum, 17

10) Rafiqa, 20

10a) - her child  (same hut)
--) mother dies, but
11a) Mohammed Shofique, 11, manages to escape 

- CB, 15,  (might collapse, B may mean Begum)
- 2+ others: C.B. says "a few of us" escaped that house (might collapse)
- OB, 20 (might collapse, B may mean Begum)

Maybe Mr. Nasir just had an incomplete picture: others were held in an other pool he couldn't see, ran different ways to different people so he hadn't hear their stories yet. Added up, minimum of 10 women, maybe 14 or more, and at least 3 of their children, got out of what seems like 9 10 or more separate huts. If there were any others no one escaped from, there must be more yet.
Add 2-18: Rafiq, 14, told UNICEF there was just one big rape hut and the groups of 5 were raped there in turns of 30 minutes, then all burned at the end. Who told him to say that? It's inconsistent.

Unless about one third to one half of all women made it out, there must have been way more than 30 in that starting pool. On a house-by-hut basis, it sounds like about one woman in five usually survived, in a lucky case where anyone did. By that, 10-14 survivors (minimum) suggests the original pool would have to be at least 50-70 women, and perhaps far more. Including their children (sometimes zero, sometimes 3-5, generally killed but often with a survivor). That's like 200 people implicitly put through this ordeal. But happily, it also shows an unexpectedly high survival rate.

So in short, this aspect fails to line up, with the same inflationary problem seen in the general overabundance of survivors and their attached stories. They had too many talkers come out pushing the story. But it was quite dramatic.

Add Jan. 7: https://twitter.com/shafiur/status/936871828114386946

Shafiur Rahman @shafiur 2 Dec 2017
Tula Toli survivors amongst the audience for the third screening of my film on the massacre.  At a madrassah in Taingkhali, Hakim para #rohingya #refugee camp. #genocide

(quite a few bearded faces, none that I instantly recognize... some smiling kids, everyone excited to see how their story works on screen)

Tula Toli Massacre: The Visual Record

Tula Toli Massacre: The Visual Record
January 1, 2018
last edits Jan. 2, 11, 13...

I'm considering all the available evidence for the massive alleged Tula Toli massacre of 500-2,000 innocent Rohingya. But I'm putting this part here as I seek more input and may have more to analyze, more images than the rest of it - this part at least deserves its own post. (main Tula Toli post and Myanmar masterlist, forthcoming - see also rudimentary ACLOS page).

In short, we don't see much of the actual crimes. We do hear the stories told, and sometimes see that happening on video. But of course, stories can be untrue. So we turn to the physical/visual evidence to see what it can bear out. This may expand, but so far what I see in three video-recorded scenes adds some to the picture, but not much.

Moved below: Why wounds seen non survivors don't count. Let's get right to any supposed video of the events themselves. 

No (Clear) Video of the Massacre

Anyway, wounds shown on video along with a story don't count to prove anything. And separately, it seems no one filmed the alleged massacre in Tula Toli.

The scene everyone describes is a wide-open massacre on the river, visible from both sides for a distance. It was all in daylight and ran for hours. BBC video says it started in the morning, no exact time. Amnesty report says it started in the morning, no exact time given. The Guardian heard that the first house burned at 3:30 am. HRW heard 8 a.m. from Shawfika, and summarized "At about 8 a.m., Burmese security forces and armed Rakhine villagers approached Tula Toli from three different directions and began to burn homes on the outskirts of the village." The killings came a bit later and "went on from when they arrived to the time of the Juhur prayer [approximately 2 p.m.]."  (December report)

And yet, there's not a single video of any part of the killings. Nor is there a single photo or video of the mass graves, burn pits, etc. In most reports, it's mentioned the army guys took everyone's cell phones/devices as a first order of business before they killed anyone. And clearly, most people's first worry in fleeing a massacre won't be to film the event. 

But there are videos from across the river, maybe people lucky enough to be nearby but not get rounded up, and to still have their phones. Mohammed Islam, 40, says he was coming back from a trip when the massacre started. Hearing the news, "He joined his neighbours and ran to a nearby hill in the forest, on the west side of the village. “I watched everything,” he said. “My wife and three children were killed.” (Frontier Myanmar) He saw it, but he didn't film it.

Some with an excuse not to film testify to what was visible for those few who could record events. Amnesty: "Several people who swam to Wet Kyein said that, from across the river that afternoon, they could see soldiers burning bodies." At 6:00 in the BBC video: from across the way, this guy watched soldiers "lining up the dead bodies on the river bank," finishing off some survivors with the rifle butts. HRW: "...across the river, he watched as the soldiers fired into the terrified crowds until only piles of bodies remained on the beach. He said he saw 20 to 30 bodies of villagers floating in the river, shot while trying to escape. He then watched the soldiers dig holes in the soft sand to put the bodies in before burning them with fuel." All this too passed through pupils, but no camera lenses. "Omar Ali, said that he had witnessed the landing of the helicopter and the distribution of weapons and uniforms to the Rakhine villagers from the helicopter." That sounds like damning video footage to share, but ... eh. "Witnesses estimated that about 400 women and children were held under guard nearby in the shallow water." I'm not convinced even this actually happened, because it too has no video evidence, when it probably should. 

This absence of evidence doesn't prove there was no massacre, but it certainly raises questions, and at the lest, it leaves open the possibility that there was no such event. 

And it's not just that there's no video, but that the scant video there is also fails to support any of the hideous details it probably should show. Some had phones/cameras and claim to have filmed a few boring or unclear parts, but no one filmed any of the more crucial and hard-to-believe aspects. These videos below (3 so far) are presented as massacre-related scenes that were filmed, all in daylight, from the opposite shore and not close up. Is that because it was the only safe place to film? the only place phones weren't taken? Or by choice because from the opposite shore the lack of evidence for a massacre is a bit less obvious? 

Geolocation and site verification may not work very well here, and I may not try. Directions aren't totally clear. It's on a river, etc. I'll check for internal consistency between videos at least and  might sort out the scene ...

Offered Video Evidence
1) Gathering Near the River

There's a November 23 video titled (from Azerbaijani) "Rulers of the Tula Toli village, fleeing the Myanmar army." It shows quite a few people - not 1-2,000 as claimed, but a couple of hundred - are near the wide shoreline if not the water, around mid-day (sun is indistinct, fairly high, from the left - depending, that's mid-morning or early-afternoon). People are milling about mainly at the edge of the mud beach, not at all on the mud or in the water, and partly on the grass, and back towards the village. Off to the left we see more cattle and less humans (see full view below). This to me looks unusual - they all came to the river why? No one's coming for the water or there would be some people in it, or coming or going across the mud. 

There's no audio track to say if there's shooting sounds, but no one is running. A lot of white shirts, no green uniforms noticeable, or army vehicles. The view and resolution is limited, of course. But as far as we can see, no one's been killed, is being killed, or is waiting like we heard - hundreds of women and children made to stand out in the water as the men were killed, and then as they were taken and raped in small groups. It's not clear if there's enough water anywhere to stand in. There also may be an issue with the reports of a raging swollen river that swept away many who tried to swim. Here the level seems very low here (or is that just a depth illusion where the even-wider river is just off-frame?) 

Note the village isn't burning here either. If the first home(s) started burning at 3:30 am ... maybe those had gone out by now, and the rest would be torched later? So that's probably just a non-massacre scene, and should be from a different day - if this is August 30, they have an even worse problem.

This could show a raid by authorities, where people were told to gather near but not in, the river as their homes were searched for militant materials. That may have all been taken out of town first, across the river on boats, along with the guy holding this camera, perhaps. Okay so that's the army arrival, people sent off to the side, maybe ... that could prove interesting.

But the part where the soldiers started killing people, burning them in pits, having women stand out in the water, then mass-raping them and torching homes, all in plain sight and allegedly seen by so many ... was it just too horrible to film? for this guy or anyone else? Or was it just too boring? Things that are never going to happen are boring like that, and they fail to appear on video like this.

2) Burning the Village

A BBC video report on the alleged massacre shares this and more possibly relevant footage at 5:47 of the same or a similar place (see comparisons below). We see in low resolution a fire and smoke rising from the burning village.

It seems like a different day from above, or different time anyway. The sky seems more overcast, and with a slightly higher water level. There are sounds of gunshots at perhaps the right distance, or maybe too close. But it's not clear who's shooting or burning, and there's no sign of bodies piled or burning, or people gathered and waiting, nor milling around like in the other video.  The shore is just empty.  To the right (see below) may be a boat parked on the opposite shore. Someone who crossed over, or hasn't fled yet?

3) Dead Children

At 7:00 in the BBC video (also in CNN video) is the most graphic and compelling case for a real massacre that got partly filmed. Still, it's not that convincing. We see 3 or more children found in the water - a lady says it was 12 total from a single family - with plenty of people onshore, men recovering the bodies, women mainly staying away. No one seems dead or running, or panicked or traumatized about just surviving a massacre. They seem animated with curiosity about the unusual dead kids everyone's that seem to be creating a fresh bad mood from thin air. -  but it seems to be the opposite shore, but we see no sign across the water of burning piles of bodies or even a burning village to go with the claims of maybe 2,000 villagers massacred. (see composite view below).

If the river was  full and flowing swiftly like people say, these babies wouldn't float straight across from the village (if that's the village...). They'd have to be dropped in somewhere well upstream, I guess to the north, or maybe just be dropped and found in the shallows, all on this side. One young girl was apparently shot in the head (blurred), but another child (girl?) and a boy bear no visible wounds. But for the one, I'd say maybe they just drowned. I can't say who they really are. Maybe some massacred Rakhine neighbors, or Rohingya massacre victims as claimed. Facial features seem unclear, but they look a bit pale in pigment to be "Bengalis." Rohingya-Arabic names are given to the BBC crew, but those can be made up. 

This video may attach to a story of children found hiding in a rice paddy after the main massacre, stabbed to death and tossed in the river. (details...)

Opposite Shore Comparison

Below, the opposite shore as seen in each of these three scenes, and I'm comparing the line of near hills. The first two seem to match in the sharp peak, possibly everywhere else. Left of center, a square-ish hill may line up. To the right, the larger view is unclear in the top view (foreground leaves), but it could be the smaller sharp hill you can see below. The village seems to be mainly in between these two sharp hills. The view of it burning  (bottom) is less clear- possibly the same panned out and to the right, with the burning area at the far end of the above line of near hills and everything else I'm comparing off-frame.

As the children wash up - 1000+ bodies and a village burning across the way? 

OK, app. village burning - but no piles of bodies burning in pits, or anything like alleged

....

Compared to the map. these view almost must be aross the mud flat at the bend just east of town, so on the northeast shore, across a narrow stretch about at the north end of the Rakhine village of Wet Kyein, raided and burned on August 28 (or, that's disputed...) 

All these are filmed from the opposite shore, or from next to Wet Kyein as labeled above. According to the government and Human Rights Watch, that's the name of an ethnic Rakhine village somewhere around there. According to others, it's attached to a Rohingya village right there HRW and some others refer to as Dual Toli. Each version is based on what people were telling them, and some of that information has to be false. As I reason here (aside from explaining the details of this confusion), this might be a Buddhist village that was raided and torched, and where babies perhaps too pale to be Rohingya are seen floating dead.

More Examples
Added Jan. 11, along with early tweets - unlike Maung Nu, this one had reports lodged at the time.
Local time in Myanmar is 14.5 hours ahead of me and the timestamps for Youtube, Facebook I think, and Twitter. Why .5 I don't know, but there are some spots in the world offset like that.

Not quite worth counting, but related - a pre-massacre video claiming to show people hiding near Tula Toli.
Tun Lin Soe tweet @TunLin781, 29 Aug 2017 11:18 am = 1:48 am on the 30th, local time
After burnt down #PadagaYwaThit  #WakChin and #GahratawVill by Militaries villagers hided
at #TulaTuli  Hills side too #TulaTuli  Villagers
WakChin = Wet Kyein? Likely not, but maybe... Right across the river from Tula Toli. Everyone agrees on some attack and home-burning there on the 28th. PadagaYwaThit = Ywar Thit (Wikimapia)? -  if that's what he means, is right by Maung Nu - alleged massacre on the 27th all the witnesses forgot about early on, but remembered later - from that area, it's around 20 km or more and uphill into the mountains east of Tula Toli. add 1/13: A map I was shown has a (district?) just north of Wet Kyein called Pa Da Kar (Padaga) Ywar Thit, so it's just a bit northeast of Tula Toli. GahratawVill = Gheratabil? said to be attacked Aug, 28, with a survivor fled to Tula Toli (Nurul Amin, 33?), and surviving that too - not placed, but probably somewhere in this 20 km span -

4) Village Burning
Tun Lin Soe tweet - @TunLin781 29 Aug 2017 9:15 pm = 11:45 am on the 30th
Update:Mymr Extremists #Militaries  &#Kamui jointly started firing #TulaTuli Villg nrth MaungDaw2day frm 9am @nslwin @mir_sidiquee @AJ_Omarr

A photo or video still, not video, is included: partial burning village, at right. Aside from 2 or more fires raging, there's no sign of the massacre here. Apparently a different view from above. Filming location might be of interest (if this even is Tula Toli). How many places can you manage to see on sign of the massacre or the forces surrounding them on three sides, and freely film this quiet portion of their attack? Rice paddies seem to along the river, east and south of Tula Toli, and on the opposite side further to the north. This is supposed to be after 9 am and probably closer to 11:45. Sunlight direction isn't clear. Which way these taller mountains are visible isn't clear yet.

?) Possibly meant as video from Tula Toli, but maybe not:
Jalal Tarafdar tweets at 9:06 am on the 30th (= 11:36 pm local) a link to his Facebook post of the same time, showing people crossing a river.
#BreakingNews-

Aug 30 9:06 am
Almost entire villagers of Dualtoli & Tulatuli villages of Maungdaw have been killed by Burmese Regimes, leaving remaining Rohingyas in shock & fear.
At the same time Military started burning down Zurkhafara village of Naisafuru,#Maungdaw, where entire village is burning,leaving villagers displaced.
#SAVEROHINGYA #SAVEHUMANITY
#BANBURMESEARMY

Same video was used hours earlier:
@TunLin781 30 Aug 2017 12:28 am = 2:58 pm
2dy more thn 5K Rohingyas frm #TulaTuli #WakChin #SadulaSor  #DiyalTawli crssng river to #SanGapin  nrth MDW 2Save their lives @nslwin @hrw
we see hundreds of people crossing the river at once, and freely. Some have a boat, some have paked bags. The opposite shore isn't extremely clear, but we see no piles of bodies, no soldiers shooting at them, or anything. The village does seem to be on fire.
It's not clear if this is even supposed to be Tula Toli, but if it is ... this is nothing like what they described - the panicked escape of a "handful" amidst the chaos of a huge massacre.

So it's just people from there and other places crossing later. San Gapin could be placed, but eh... it's not across from Tula Toli. Whatever seems to be burning here is not directly related. Note here WakChin and Diyal(Dual)Toli are named as two places, so WakChin is probably not the Wet Kyein, the alternate name they would try to shift with the help of Human Rights Watch.

Note: all these people fleeing massacres sometimes on fire or with loved ones left behind hacked up and only the clothes on their back ... must have already passed by? This is pretty early for Tula Toli people, depending, before 3pm local time, so still on their way? These other class of people mostly all packed bags before they left, as if they were given time for that. I suspect it was largely at gunpoint either way, but partly voluntary. Either way, it seems time was allowed to pack, and thus bring their most prized few small things, if not much else - no one's carrying a TV, but most probably have their gold and jewels, smaller electronics, koran, etc (in plastic bags). These ones won't be carrying weapons at the moment. And they were told to pack light. I deduce the people rushing them to leave didn't want to sour these people more than necessary. That seems like a clun.

No more video, but huge massacre reports sounding confident by mid-afternoon:

Tun Lin Soe tweet @TunLin781, 30 Aug 2017 1:48 am = 4:18pm

More thn 100 families were shot dead and the Extremists #Militaries burying all dead body now  #TulaTuli call Min Gyi Ywa north MaungDaw .

Rohingya Vision tweet @RohingyaVision 30 Aug 2017 3:30 AM = 6:00 pm local
#UPDATE:3pm:Almost entire villagers of Dualtoli&Tulatuli,Maungdaw have been killed by Regimes,leaving remaining Rohingyas in shock &fear @UN

Wounds Seen on Survivors?

These don't count, and here's why

Some of these witnesses bear scars of the massacre that are shown as proof. Perhaps the best source on this is International Business Times report with photos and stories for four women (and just a photo for another, Minwara Begum as the Daily Mail gives it). Of the four, each has some kind of scars to show. Of the five, four are alleged survivors from Tula Toli. Most of these women have been put forth to the media several times, generally telling the same story, and especially two who remain especially photogenic despite their dramatic scars.

Roshida Begum claims she had her baby killed and was raped in one of those huts at Tula Toli, along with other women. IBT quotes her as explaining "After they were done, they slit our necks with machetes. They thought I was dead and they left and set the house on fire. I was the only one who escaped." She shows convincing neck wounds - one is deep and wide, a tear, at the collarbone - the other is on her throat, seeming less substantial. I'm not an expert in healing, but... it's allegedly non-fatal, anyway. She also shows a series of two slices on the back of her neck, now fully healed.

Mumtaz Begum, 30, who remain fairly photogenic despite their scars. Mumtaz is perhaps the star survivor here, with nasty burns on her right side (upper face, arm and hand, and down the right leg, at least).

Besides this IBT piece, Mumtaz Begum has spoken to/been published by CNN, HRW, Independent, Daily Sun, Daily Mail, and BBC (still at right, with her daughter Razia, age 7, who'd been hacked in the head).

Side-note/small question: At first I wondered why so many alleged survivors and witnesses of this and other massacres are named Begum. In this case, the  four Tula Toli survivors in the IBT report are all named Begum. It seems well over half of them are among those I've seen named speaking of all the massacres combined. I don't think I've seen a single man named Begum yet. Is it even a family name, or a feminine title used for most but not all women? Or is this some kind of clue?---

Mumtaz and little Razia I had already noted in my post "Rohingya" Crisis: what do we really know?:

Consider a young woman with a badly burned face and child with major head gashes (couldn't re-locate that video at the moment). She says army men did this to them, but she says this living among people who may have actually done it, sparing her and child from one of their massacres, keeping her imprisoned and afraid to tell the truth.

Now I've seen more reports, she's a supposed survivor of this massacre, and a very prominent, widely cited witness. That impression still holds. To CNN she claimed to have been shot and left for dead in a pile of bodies, after her husband was killed. Then she was found alive, and dragged to a raping hut, along with some living children (who were not on that pile, but somehow reunited to die with her?). Two of her younger kids were brutally killed there, and they tried to kill Razia too. Then Mumtaz says she was beaten, raped, and left for dead again, as they lit up the hut. But she woke up with the help of Razia noticing her finger was on fire, and escaped from the burning hut, smashing through the wall to find Razia already outside. Both managed to flee the scene without being shot, and made it to Bangladesh to tell this story.

How could we doubt the account of a woman burned in the massacre, that other one neck-sliced in it, or the others? First, I note  that other than the burns, Mumtaz displays no other wounds we see to justify the killers leaving her for dead - not once but twice - prior to that fire. The others in this injured women set do show various cuts - and her daughter does, apparently real sword slices across the head - but not Mumtaz herself. That's a logic problem with her story, suggesting that however it came to be, maybe the story isn't true. On top of the others, it's an all-around dubious account.

Here's another woman, apparently ethnic Rakhine, recently hacked in the head and left for dead. She bled a lot, and might look fatal to a pressed fighter with no experience. But her skull was intact, and thus brain, and she survived. Myanmar security forces found her after the militants had fled. (or so I gather - back-story unknown) 

And as precedent for doubt, and a damn good one, I explained in that last post about the 8 women - not even wounded - who said they survived another government massacre in Kha Maung Seik. They were Hindus, whose Hindu husbands were allegedly killed ... because they wouldn't help the Buddhists... to kill the Muslims. Then some non-killed Muslims in town... married and converted these 8 widows. As luck would have it, the prettiest ones were spared. Then they brought them to Bangladesh to tell these stories of inspiring Muslim-Hindu solidarity. (this is part of where these headaches come from.)

Well, then the women were identified by family members and asked after. They and their 10 spare children were removed from their Muslim hosts. Once in a Hindu camp, they explained how the ARSA Islamists had murdered their families and husbands, cutting their throats, and had kidnapped these prettiest ones once they agreed to convert, presumably raped them under cover of coerced "marriage," and also made them lie repeatedly, telling the story upside-down to a gullible world media hungry for accusations against the Myanmar government.

Now, what if some others had been hacked and burned first in some other ARSA offensive, and then "spared" in a similar way? Perhaps less out of sexual attraction than ability to really prove the stories they can be made to tell. Any wound they showed as proof of the government crime would just be a different kind of coerced lie, and one that would actually prove the brutality of those holding her prisoner. And that may be just it with Mumtaz and the rest. Even the names they give (mostly "Something Begum") could be fake, maybe bestowed by some wealthy opposition financier lady named Begum (for example). 

But we can't know for sure either way. The test would be to remove these people from their Muslim hosts so they can speak freely, and then see what happens. They could give the same story and freely go back to the camp, or change their story like those Hindu women did and start the long path back to what's left of their true homes. If this is needed, as I suspect it is in some cases, I hope it's happening. Is anyone still missing? Any way to get the videos to their family members inside Myanmar to check?