An estimated 500 Hindus crossed over to refugee camps in Bangladesh in the weeks since the August 25 attacks on police posts in Maungdaw by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army
The Myanmar government have urged Hindu refugees who fled to Bangladesh to return, promising they will be cared for in Sittwe, Frontier Myanmar reports.
An estimated 500 Hindus crossed over to refugee camps in Bangladesh in the weeks since the August 25 attacks on police posts in Maungdaw by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).
U Bu Hla Shwe, Coordinator of the Danyawady IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp in Sittwe on behalf of the Rakhine State government, told Frontier on Tuesday that most of the Hindus across the border are from Ohtein village in Maungdaw Township, and had fled the day after the initial attacks last month.
A further eight Hindu women were from Ye Bauk Kyar village, around 15km south of the Bangladeshi border, whose inhabitants authorities previously believed had all been killed.
Tension between Myanmar’s majority Buddhists and the Rohingya, most of whom are denied citizenship, has exploded several times over the past few years as old enmities, and Buddhist nationalism, surfaced with the end of decades of harsh military rule.
There has been an exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August 25, when attacks by ARSA triggered a military crackdown that the United Nations has branded “ethnic cleansing”.
Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune