Thousands flee clashes as Yangon troops raid villages

Myanmar security forces intensified operations against Rohingya insurgents yesterday police and other sources said, following three days of clashes with militants in the worst violence involving Myanmar’s Muslim minority in five years.The fighting has killed 104 people and led to the flight of large numbers of Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist civilians from the northern part of Rakhine state.The violence marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since October.The treatment of about 1.1mn 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.The Nobel peace laureate has been accused by some Western critics of not speaking out on behalf of the long-persecuted minority, and of defending the army’s sweep after the October attacks.The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots there that go back centuries, with communities marginalised and occasionally subjected to communal violence.“Now the situation is not good. Everything depends on them — if they’re active, the situation will be tense,” said police officer Tun Hlaing from Buthidaung township, referring to the Rohingya insurgents.Rohingya villagers make up the majority in the area. “We split into two groups, one will provide security at police outposts and the other group is going out for clearance operation with the military,” he said.A Buthidaung-based reporter, citing police sources directly involved in events, said three police posts in northern Buthidaung had been surrounded by Rohingya insurgents.Many houses had been burning since Sunday in parts of neighbouring Maungdaw town, another journalist and a military source in Maungdaw told Reuters.A Rohingya villager in the area said the army attacked three hamlets in the Kyee Kan Pyin village group with shotguns and other weapons, before torching houses.“Everything is on fire,” he said by phone. “Now I’m in the fields with the people, we’re running away.”A military source in Rakhine state confirmed that houses were burned in the area but blamed the insurgents, who he said opened fire when soldiers came to find them and clear landmines. The insurgents fled, he said, adding there were no casualties.The Myanmar military reported clashes over the weekend involving hundreds of insurgents, taking the death toll to at least 104, the majority militants, plus 12 members of the security forces and several civilians.There were no official updates from the army or the government yesterday.The unrest has exposed the dark side of Myanmar’s historic opening up: An unleashing of ethnic hatred that was suppressed during 49 years of strict military rule that ended when the generals stepped back from direct rule in 2011.The following year, hundreds of people, most of them Rohingya, were killed in communal clashes in Rakhine state and about 140,000 people were displaced.In neighbouring Bangladesh yesterday, border guards tried to push back refugees stranded in no man’s land near the village of Gumdhum.Reuters reporters have heard gun fire from the Myanmar side in the last three days.Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar since the early 1990s and there are now about 400,000 in Bangladesh, which has said no new refugees will be allowed in.Police have threatened refugees in the country with arrest if they help new arrivals, refugee sources said.“How can we go back there? Just to get killed?” asked Mujibur Rahman, standing on the border.Nevertheless, an estimated 3,000 people have crossed into Bangladesh in the past few days, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told Reuters.Aid groups like Action Against Hunger and UNHCR said they were helping the new refugees with food and other assistance.Myanmar has urged Rohingya civilians to co-operate with security forces, assuring those with without ties to the insurgents they would not be affected.An Islamist group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army claimed responsibility for the Friday attacks.It was also behind the violence in October.The group has said in statements it has to fight to protect the rights of Rohingya.The government has evacuated thousands of non-Muslim villagers from the north of Rakhine state to towns, monasteries and police stations.About 500 people, mostly government workers, moved to the state capital, Sittwe, yesterday in two boats, the government said.“We are afraid of swords because they attack people with swords,” said Than Aye, a 65-year-old villager fleeing Buthidaung for Sittwe.“That’s why we are fleeing from there, as we are afraid of them.”Bangladesh has raised a ‘serious objection’ to tagging the insurgents as “Bengali terrorists”, and asked its envoy in Dhaka to convey the message to the Myanmar authorities.Bangladesh has also proposed a joint operation against militants under any tag-name and on both sides — Bangladesh and Myanmar — of the border, if necessary.Director General (South East Asia wing) at the Ministry Manjurul Karim Khan Chowdhury called Charge d’Affaires of Myanmar Embassy in Dhaka Aung Myint at his office yesterday and conveyed these two specific messages.“We’ve a serious objection to using Bengali terrorists by Myanmar authorities after the recent incidents,” a senior official told newsmen.Bangladesh also assured Myanmar of its continued co-operation in dealing with these challenges.Earlier on Saturday, the foreign ministry summoned the Myanmar envoy in Dhaka and expressed “serious concern” over the recent happenings, including the fresh entry of Myanmar nationals into Bangladesh.Thousands of unarmed civilians, including women, children and elderly people from the Rakhine State, have assembled close to the border and are making attempts to enter Bangladesh.Bangladesh recalled the influx of Myanmar nationals into Bangladesh due to similar military operations in the aftermath of attacks on October 9 last year that resulted in about 87,000 of civilians crossing over to Bangladesh till July 31.Bangladesh has expressed “serious concern” at the possibility of recurrence of such a situation as Bangladesh already hosts about four hundred thousand of Myanmar nationals, said the Foreign Ministry sources.Bangladesh has been urging the Myanmar authorities to address the underlying root cause of the protracted problem through a comprehensive and inclusive approach.Bangladesh earlier pointed out that the attack and clashes occurred at a time when the Rakhine Advisory Commission, popularly known as Kofi Annan Commission, has come forward with recommendations towards a durable solution for the Rakhine State.The government has directed the local administration in Cox’s Bazaar to employ to restrict the entry of Rohingyas into the country saying that not a single person will be allowed.