Buddhist villagers fled their homes yesterday as renewed sectarian violence hit western Myanmar, officials said, blaming Muslim Rohingya people from a “neighboring country” for the unrest.
Police and army reinforcements have been deployed to Rakhine State — which borders Bangladesh — to quell the violence after villagers’ homes were set ablaze early yesterday, one government official said.
Unrest flared on Friday when at least four Buddhists were killed in riots in Rakhine, which is home to large numbers of Rohingya, a Muslim group described by the UN as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.
Photo: AFP
Armed Rohingya came early in the morning “to destroy and burn down the villages,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They came from the neighboring country by boats.”
Myanmar, which considers the stateless Rohingya as foreigners and not one of the nation’s ethnic groups, has an estimated 750,000 Rohingya, living mainly in Rakhine, according to the UN.
Another 1 million or more are believed to live in exile in other countries.
“We can confirm so far that about 386 houses were burnt down ... and some buildings were also destroyed by Rohingyas,” the official said.
A second official confirmed the build-up of security forces as the state media said a night curfew would remain until further notice and announced a ban on five or more people gathering in some villages.
“The military commands have been increased ... We can be attacked by Rohingyas in the future inside the country. We all should be in alert,” said the second official, who also did not want to be named.
Tensions have flared in Rakhine since 10 Muslims on a bus were killed by an angry Buddhist mob on June 2, believing mistakenly that the perpetrators of the recent rape and murder of a Rakhine woman were on board.
Religious clashes occur periodically in Myanmar, and Rakhine State — which has a large Muslim minority population — is a flashpoint for tensions.
Buddhists make up about 89 percent of the population of Myanmar, with Muslims officially representing 4 percent.
The violence threatens to overshadow reconciliation efforts following a series of dramatic political reforms that came after the end of almost half a century of military rule last year.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
CONFLICT: The move is the latest escalation of the White House’s pitched battle with Harvard University as more than US$2 billion is suspended US President Donald Trump’s administration threatened to assume ownership of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of patents from Harvard University, accusing the Ivy League college of failing to comply with the law on federal research grants. In a letter to Harvard president Alan Garber on Friday, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the university is failing its obligations to US taxpayers, paving the way for a process that could result in the government seizing its patents under the Bayh-Dole Act. Harvard has until Sept. 5 to prove it is complying with the requirements, including whether it showed a
RSS