Myanmar yesterday urged Muslims in the troubled northwest to cooperate in the search for insurgents, whose coordinated attacks on security posts and an army crackdown have led to one of the deadliest bouts of violence to engulf the Rohingya community in decades.
Aid agencies estimate about 73,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh from Myanmar since violence erupted last week, UNHCR regional spokesman Vivian Tan said yesterday.
Hundreds more refugees yesterday walked through rice paddies from the Naf River separating the two countries into Bangladesh, straining scarce resources of aid groups and local communities already helping tens of thousands.
Photo: AP
The clashes and military counteroffensive have killed nearly 400 people during the past week.
“Islamic villagers in northern Maungtaw have been urged over loudspeakers to cooperate when security forces search for Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army [ARSA] extremist terrorists, and not to pose a threat or brandish weapons when security forces enter their villages,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said yesterday.
ARSA has been declared a terrorist organization by the government.
In Maungni village in northern Rakhine, villagers earlier this week caught two ARSA members and handed them over to the authorities, the newspaper added.
The army wrote in a Facebook post yesterday that Rohingya insurgents had set fires to monasteries, images of Buddha as well as schools and houses in northern Rakhine. More than 200 buildings, including houses and shops, were destroyed across several villages, the army said.
Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh and human rights watchers say a campaign of arson and killings by the army is aimed at trying to force the minority group out.
Satellite imagery analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows hundreds of buildings had been destroyed in at least 17 sites across Rakhine state since Monday last week, including about 700 structures that appeared to have been burned down in just the village of Chein Khar Li, the rights watchdog group said.
More than 11,700 “ethnic residents” had been evacuated from northern Rakhine, the government has said, referring to non-Muslims.
Meanwhile, aid officials said relief camps in Bangladesh were reaching full capacity.
Aid workers said that large numbers of refugees required immediate medical attention as they were suffering from respiratory diseases, infection and malnutrition.
Additional reporting by AP
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