Myanmar government forces committed rape and other sexual violence against ethnic Rohingya women and girls as young as 13 during security operations in northern Rakhine State in late 2016, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

Myanmar army and Border Guard Police personnel took part in rape, gang rape, invasive body searches, and sexual assaults in at least nine villages in Maungdaw district between October 9 and mid‐December.

Survivors and witnesses, who identified army and border police units by their uniforms, kerchiefs, armbands, and patches, described security forces carrying out attacks in groups, some holding women down or threatening them at gunpoint while others raped them, said the New York‐based rights body.

Many survivors reported being insulted and threatened on an ethnic or religious basis during the assaults.

‘These horrific attacks on Rohingya women and girls by security forces add a new and brutal chapter to the Burmese military’s long and sickening history of sexual violence against women,’ said Priyanka Motaparthy, senior emergencies researcher.

‘Military and police commanders should be held responsible for these crimes if they did not do everything in their power to stop them or punish those involved,’ she said.

Between December 2016 and January 2017, Human Rights Watch researchers in Bangladesh interviewed 18 women, of whom 11 had survived sexual assault, as well as 10 men. Seventeen men and women, including some women who survived assaults, witnessed sexual violence, including against their wives, sisters, or daughters.

Altogether Human Rights Watch documented 28 incidents of rape and other sexual assault.

A report released by the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) on 3 February found that more than half of the 101 women UN investigators interviewed said they were raped or suffered other forms of sexual violence.