A mob wielding weapons razed a Muslim prayer hall in northern Myanmar, state media reported on Saturday, the second attack on a mosque in just over a week as anti-Muslim sentiment swells in the Buddhist majority nation.
Myanmar has struggled to contain bouts of deadly religious bloodshed in recent years, with bristling sectarian tensions and rising Buddhist nationalism posing a steep challenge to the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
On Friday villagers in Hpakant, a jade-mining town in northern Kachin state, ransacked a mosque “wielding sticks, knives and other weapons” before burning it down, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar.
“The mob was unresponsive and entirely beyond control. The building was razed by the riotous crowd,” the paper reported, adding that the rampage was sparked by a dispute over the mosque’s construction.
No arrests have been made, it said.
The riot coincided with the end of a 12-day visit by a United Nations rights investigator who warned that “tensions along religious lines remain pervasive across Myanmar society”.
In a press conference concluding her trip Friday, Yanghee Lee called on authorities to investigate the destruction of another mosque in central Bago late last month.