KABUL (SW): More than 27,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in Myanmar in recent days, the United Nations said, as corpses of people drowned in desperate attempts to cross the border river washed up on Bangladeshi soil.
A further 20,000 Rohingya have massed along the Bangladeshi frontier, the UN added in a statement, but are barred from entry as they run from burning villages and Myanmar army operations.
Rumours of massacres and the systematic torching of villages by security forces ─ as well as by militants ─ have further amplified tensions, raising fears that communal violence in Rakhine state is spinning out of control.
Rights groups allege a massacre of Rohingya occurred on Sunday afternoon in the village of Chut Pyin in Rathedaung township, led by Myanmar security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs.
Fortify Rights, an NGO with a focus on Myanmar, said eyewitnesses allege mobs shot and hacked down Rohingya villagers ─ including children ─ in a five-hour “killing spree”.
“The civilian government and military need to do everything in their power to immediately prevent more attacks,” Matthew Smith of Fortify Rights said in a statement.
Calls to the President's Office and Myanmar's army went unanswered on Friday and the allegations could not be independently verified by AFP in an area which off-limits to reporters and has become a vortex of claims and counter-claims by the opposing sides.
In a Facebook post earlier this week Myanmar's Information Committee appeared to confirm a major security operation took place around the village on Sunday afternoon as a patrol clashed with scores of Rohingya militants.
“Troops exchanged fire with about 80 extremist Bengali terrorists wielding homemade bombs, guns, knives, and spears,” the statement said, adding the militants then “set their houses on fire and ran away”.
Bodies in the water
Desperate to reach Bangladesh, thousands of Rohingya have taken to makeshift boats, some constructed from flotsam, in an effort to cross the Naf River which separates the two countries.
ENDS
