Five Rohingya prisoners have reportedly died this month after being starved in a prison in Pathein in Irrawaddy Region.

A man close to the police told NMG on condition of anonymity that prison staff beat up one of the Rohingya inmates and another prisoner after they allegedly killed a cat for meat on Sunday, 19 March.

“He died of his severe injuries in the prison. The Bamar prisoner was seriously hurt and isreceiving medical treatment.”

The other four Rohingya prisoners died of starvation.

A youth from the Irrawaddy Myanmar - Muslim Network says, “We know about the Muslim prisoners who died in prison, but we can’t prepare a traditional funeral service for them.” The regime also prevented Muslim civil societies from sending them food before they died, he said.

Pathein prison authorities also blocked their families from bringing them food in the last three months.

According to released prisoners, they’re often beaten by staff when they’re drunk.

Sources close to the employees said they beat political prisoners protesting in the prison on 6 January and the Rohingya prisoners every night.

The regime has already arrested over 700 Rohingya who fled Rakhine State to the Irrawaddy Region, and 200 of them are detained in Pathein Prison.

In Burma, most Rohingya are denied citizenship and freedom of movement even though they were born in the country. Before the military’s eviction campaigns in 2016-17 forced more than

740,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh, there were about 1.4 million Rohingya living in Burma.

A UN fact-finding mission has found that the 2017 operation in Rakhine State involved “genocidal acts”.