Rohingya villagers in Myanmar beg for safe passage

MYANMAR: Thousands of Rohingya Muslims in violenceracked northwest Myanmar are pleading with authorities for safe passage from two remote villages that are cut off by hostile Buddhists and running short of food.

‘‘We’re terrified,’’ Maung Maung, a Rohingya official at Ah Nauk Pyin village, told Reuters by telephone. ‘‘We’ll starve soon and they’re threatening to burn down our houses.’’ Another Rohingya contacted by Reuters, who asked not to be named, said ethnic Rakhine Buddhists had come to the same village and shouted, ‘‘Leave, or we will kill you all.’’

Fragile relations between Ah Nauk Pyin and its Rakhine neighbours were shattered on August 25, when deadly attacks by Rohingya militants in Rakhine State prompted a ferocious response from Myanmar’s security forces.

At least 430,000 Rohingya have since fled into neighbouring Bangladesh to evade what the United Nations has called a ‘‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’’.

About a million Rohingya lived in Rakhine State until the recent violence. Most face draconian travel restrictions and are denied citizenship in a country where many Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Tin Maung Swe, secretary of the Rakhine State government, told Reuters he was working closely with the Rathedaung authorities, and had received no information about the Rohingya villagers’ plea for safe passage.

‘‘There is nothing to be concerned about,’’ he said when asked about local tensions. ‘‘Southern Rathedaung is completely safe.’’

National police spokesman Myo Thu Soe said he also had no information about the Rohingya villages but that he would look into the matter.

Asked to comment, a spokeswoman for the US State Department’s East Asia Bureau made no reference to the situation in the villages, but said the United States was calling ‘‘urgently’’ for Myanmar’s security forces ‘‘to act in accordance with the rule of law and to stop the violence and displacement suffered by individuals from all communities.’’

‘‘Tens of thousands of people reportedly lack adequate food, water, and shelter in northern Rakhine State,’’ spokeswoman Katina Adams said.

PHOTO: REUTERS A large plume of smoke is seen on the Myanmar side of the border from Teknaf, Bangladesh, after villagers in the area told Reuters ‘’hostile Buddhists’' were threatening to burn down their homes.