More than 2,600 houses have been burned down in Rohingya-majority areas of Myanmar’s northwest in the last week, the government said on Saturday, in one of the deadliest bouts of violence involving the Muslim minority in decades.
Nearly 60,000 people, mostly Rohingya Muslims, have crossed into Bangladesh in the last eight days desperately trying to escape spiralling communal violence in Rakhine state, the UN refugee agency said on Saturday.
“The estimated number is 58,600 (as of) today according to various aid agencies and will keep going up,” UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan told
Myanmar officials blamed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army for the burning of the homes. The group claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks on security posts last week that prompted clashes and a large army counter-offensive.
But Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say a campaign of arson and killings by the Myanmar army is aimed at trying to force them out.
Meanwhile, scores of Rohingya Muslim refugees offered Id prayers on Saturday in Bangladesh, many of them recent arrivals.
