Rohingyas urged to hunt insurgents
COX’S BAZAR/YANGON: Myanmar urged Muslims in the troubled northwest to cooperate in the search for insurgents, whose coordinated attacks on security posts and an army crackdown have led to one of the deadliest bouts of violence to engulf the Rohingya community in decades.
Aid agencies estimate about 73,000 Rohingya have fled into neighbouring Bangladesh from Myanmar since violence erupted last week, Vivian Tan, regional spokeswoman for UN refugee agency UNHCR, said yesterday.
Hundreds more refugees walked through rice paddies from the Naf river separating the two countries into Bangladesh yesterday, straining scarce resources of aid groups and local communities already helping tens of thousands.
The clashes and military counteroffensive have killed nearly 400 people during the past week.
The treatment of Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s roughly 1.1 million Muslim Rohingyas is the biggest challenge facing leader Aung San Suu Kyi, accused by Western critics of not speaking out for the minority that has long complained of persecution.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday violence against Muslims amounted to genocide.
It marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered since October, when a smaller Rohingya attack on security posts prompted a military response dogged by allegations of rights abuses.
“Islamic villagers in northern Maungtaw have been urged over loudspeakers to cooperate when security forces search for Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army [ARSA] extremist terrorists, and not to pose a threat or brandish weapons when security forces enter their villages,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said yesterday.
ARSA has been declared a terrorist organisation by the government. The group claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks on security posts last week.
In Maungni village in northern Rakhine, villagers last week caught two ARSA members and handed them over to the authorities, the newspaper added.
Rohingya insurgents reportedly set fire to monasteries.