They allege previous and ongoing genocidal acts and war crimes against the Rohingya people, including the deliberate killing, widespread gang-rape, torture, persecution, infliction of serious physical and mental harm, mass arson attacks against whole villages and an attempt to wipe out the Rohingya people.

The principal complainant is Yasmin Ullah, a young woman and founder of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network. She was born in Buthidaung, northern Rakhine State, and in 1995, Yasmin fled as a child to Thailand when the situation facing the Rohingya people became intolerable. The military subjected Rohingya to compulsory labor, forced relocation, rape, arbitrary arrests, summary executions, torture and conditions resembling apartheid.

In Thailand, her mother worked tirelessly, often 16 hours a day selling street food, just to keep the family alive. They lived in limbo, facing discrimination and exclusion, but were eventually resettled in Canada, where Yasmin says she felt safe and secure for the first time in her life.

But in early 2016, Yasmin’s family back home began to report that conditions were worsening exponentially. The military increased its presence, with special security forces deployed to villages, paddy fields, schools and even into peoples’ homes.

Then in 2017, the genocide intensified significantly. Battalions from the Sagaing-based 33rd Light Infantry Division and the Meiktila-based 99th Light Infantry Division were deployed to northern Rakhine State, where Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, then Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, had direct control.

On Aug. 25, 2017, the genocide reached Yasmin’s own family. In the early morning, they woke to the sound of gunfire. Soldiers were shooting directly into the village. Civilians were killed inside their homes. Others were rounded up, beaten, tortured and murdered in front of their families. Men and boys were labeled “terrorists”.