Mohammadi News Agency News – Features – Photo
MNA Exclusive Desk: Thousands of fearful Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhist civilians fled the worst fighting to grip Myanmar’s northwest in five years, reported news agency.
The mass escape from the northern part of Rakhine state was triggered by widespread coordinated offensives by Rohingya insurgents wielding sticks, knives and homemade bombs in attacks on Friday on 30 police posts and an army base.
The violence marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since last October, when a similar but much smaller Rohingya attack prompted a brutal military response dogged by allegations of human rights abuses.
The treatment of about 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya in mainly Buddhist Myanmar has emerged as the biggest challenge for national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has condemned the attacks and commended the security forces.
Thousands of Rohingya – mostly women and children – fleeing the violence sought to ford the Naf river separating Myanmar and Bangladesh and cross the land border.
