according to the residents, who also stated that the troops set some houses on fire. On 16 November, at least 17 civilians were killed due to the Tatmadaw shelling the Jeitchaung village in Maungdaw Township and the Chaungtu village in Kyauktaw Township. Accusations against ARSA The Myanmar government claimed in a statement that ARSA killed four Muslims, including a village head and a government informant, on 25 August 2017. The next day on 26 August, another Muslim village head and a Hindu child were allegedly killed when ARSA insurgents fired at a monastery. In addition, six Hindus were stated to have been killed when the insurgents attacked a Hindu family. The Office of Myanmar's State Counsellor also blamed ARSA for the killings of five Daingnets on 26 August and seven Mro people on 31 August. The mass-graves of 28 Hindus were found by Myanmar's security forces on 24 September 2017 near the village of Ye Baw Kya, with 17 more bodies found on the next day. Three relatives of the deceased said that masked men marched 100 Hindus away from the village before slitting their throats and pushing them into a hole. The relatives recognised some of the attackers as Rohingya Muslims, who told their victims they should not be in possession of official identity cards, which were issued by the government to Hindus but not to Muslims. After the discovery of the bodies, the Myanmar government claimed the victims were killed by ARSA insurgents. An ARSA spokesman denied the allegation that it was behind the killings and accused Buddhist nationalists of spreading lies to divide Hindus and Muslims. On 9 November 2017, Myint Khyine, the secretary of the Immigration and Population Department, blamed the deaths of 18 village leaders in the past three months in Maungdaw and Buthidaung, on ARSA. The village leaders helped the department to issue national verification cards to Rohingya villagers. On 22 May 2018, Amnesty International released a report based on accounts of witnesses and survivors claiming it had evidence that ARSA rounded up and killed as many as 99 Hindu civilians (53 in Kha Maung Seik and 46 in Ye Bauk Kyar) on 25 August 2017, the same day that ARSA launched a massive attack against Myanmar's security forces. 45 of the victims were found in a mass grave in September 2017. Rohingya refugees and Tom Andrews, a special rapporteur for the UN, have