They took their lead from the Burmese soldiers. After the Tatmadaw, as the army is known, moved from house to house, stealing the possessions of Rohingya Muslims and shooting anyone they found, ordinary Burmese civilians followed suit, burning houses, cutting the throats of injured people and throwing their bodies in fires.

The attackers brought containers of acid, which they used to burn off the faces of the dead in what appears to have been a deliberate, planned attempt to make identification difficult.

These are the allegations made by Rohingya witnesses who survived a previously undocumented attack in August last year in Rakhine State against the minority, and much persecuted, Muslim community.

“People were screaming, crying, pleading for their lives, but the soldiers just shot continuously,”