At least six Buddhists killed as ethnic tensions rise in Rakhine

Suspected insurgents killed at least six members of a Buddhist ethnic minority in western Myanmar on Thursday, the government and regional sources said, amid spiralling violence in troubled Rakhine state.

Security forces discovered the bodies of three men and three women bearing machete and gunshot wounds in the Mayu mountain range near the town of Maungdaw, the office of Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said.

In a statement, it said “extremists” were responsible for killing the six members of the Mro minority from the village of Kaigyi whom residents believe to have stumbled upon a camp for Rohingya Muslim militants. Muslim-majority Northern Rakhine was plunged into violence last October when Rohingya insurgents killed nine police in coordinated attacks on border guard posts.

In the ensuing military operation, security forces allegedly shot villagers at random, raped Rohingya women and burned down houses. United Nations investigators who interviewed some of the nearly 75,000 people who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh said troops probably committed crimes against humanity.

Suu Kyi is refusing to cooperate with a UN fact-finding mission set up to look into abuses in Rakhine and elsewhere. The government accuses the militants of running training camps in the mountains and killing alleged informants in the Muslim community.

Security forces had begun an “intensive clearance operation” to hunt the killers on Thursday, a military officer in Rakhine said.