Over 2,600 homes burned in Rohingya-majority Rakhine: Myanmar

The Myanmar government says over 2,600 houses have been burned down over the past week in the Rohingya-majority areas of the country’s northwest, which have been the scene of one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence against the persecuted Muslim community in decades.

“A total of 2,625 houses from Kotankauk, Myinlut and Kyikanpyin villages and two wards in Maungtaw were burned down,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said on Saturday.

The report blamed the so-called Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which is said to be defending Rohingya Muslims, for the fires in Rakhine villages.

The Rohingya Muslims fleeing the violence to Bangladesh, however, insist that a campaign of arson and killings by the Myanmarese army aimed at forcing them out of the country is responsible for the carnage and destruction in the area.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which analyzed satellite imagery and accounts from Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, also said Myanmar’s forces deliberately set the fires.

“New satellite imagery shows the total destruction of a Muslim village, and prompts serious concerns that the level of devastation in northern Rakhine state may be far worse than originally thought,” said the organization’s Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson.

Nearly 58,600 Rohingya Muslims have fled into neighboring Bangladesh from Myanmar, according to the UN refugee agency, as aid workers there struggle to cope.

The ARSA claimed responsibility for last week’s coordinated attacks on Myanmar army posts, which led to further clashes and a major clampdown by the country’s notorious military forces.

The skirmishes and ensuing army crackdown have killed at least 400 people and led to evacuation of more than 11,700 “ethnic residents” from the area, government officials said, referring to the non-Muslim population of northern Rakhine.

SS