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| (Zin Chit Aung/ Associated Press ) - In this April 30, 2013 photo, Muslim children take refuge in forests along a road in Okkan, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Yangon, Myanmar. Buddhist mobs hurling bricks overran a pair of mosques and set hundreds of homes ablaze in central Myanmar on Tuesday, injuring at least 10 people in the latest anti-Muslim violence to shake the Southeast Asian nation. |
May 1, 2013
OKKAN, Myanmar — Buddhist mobs hurling bricks overran a pair of mosques
and torched more than 100 homes in central Myanmar, killing one person
and injuring at least nine more in the latest anti-Muslim violence to
shake the Southeast Asian nation.
Terrified Muslim families who fled the assaults around Okkan, about 70
miles (110 kilometers) north of Yangon, could be seen late Tuesday
hiding in forests along roads and crouching in paddy fields afterward.
Some, in a state of shock, wept as their houses burned in the night and
young men with buckets futilely tried to douse the flames.
The unrest was the first reported since late March, when similar
Buddhist-led violence swept the town of Meikthila, further north,
killing at least 43 people. It underscored the failure of reformist
President Thein Sein’s government to curb increasing attacks on minority
Muslims in a nation struggling to emerge from half a century of
oppressive military rule.
Residents said as many as 400 Buddhists armed with bricks and sticks
rampaged through Okkan on Tuesday afternoon. They targeted Muslim shops
and ransacked two mosques; about 20 riot police were later deployed to
guard one of them, a single-story structure, which had its doors broken
and windows smashed.
The worst-hit areas were three outlying villages that form part of the
town. Each village contained at least 60 mostly Muslim homes; all were
torched. Columns of smoke and leaping flames could be seen rising from
burning homes in the villages as a team of police approached, pausing to
take pictures with their cellphones.
Thet Lwin, a deputy commissioner of police for the region, said one of the 10 people wounded Tuesday died overnight.
He said police have so far detained 18 attackers who destroyed 157 homes
and shops in the town of Okkan and three outlying villages, which were
quiet Wednesday with around 300 police on guard.
Police gave no details on who was behind the assault. Khin Maung Than, a
Muslim in Okkan, said he recognized some of the attackers but many
faces were unfamiliar.
The mobs smashed his shop, stealing watches, breaking glass, and leaving
overturned lamps and furniture scattered across the floor.
He said he climbed to the roof to escape and then took refuge with
Buddhist neighbors who hid him. Returning to the shop that doubles as
his home, he said: “I am speechless. I have never experienced such riots
in my life.”
The 60-year-old, who is married to a Buddhist woman, said he had heard
of last month’s violence in Meikhtila, but: “I didn’t realize we’d face
this because our town was very peaceful.”
His wife, San Htay, said police in the town were quickly overwhelmed.
They tried to disperse the crowds, she said, and several were injured in
the mayhem.
“I can’t explain how desperately sad I am now. My heart beats so fast because of fear,” she told The Associated Press.
Stopping the spread of sectarian violence has proven a major challenge
for Thein Sein’s government since it erupted in western Rakhine state
last year. Human rights groups have recently accused his administration
of failing to crack down on Buddhist extremists as violence has spread
closer to the economic capital, Yangon, at times overwhelming riot
police who have stood by as machete-wielding crowds attacked Muslims and
their property.
Muslims account for about 4 percent of the nation’s roughly 60 million
people, and during the long era of authoritarian rule, military
governments twice drove out hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, while
smaller clashes occurred elsewhere. About one third of the nation’s
population consists of ethnic minority groups, and most have waged wars
against the government for autonomy.
Last week, Human Rights Watch issued the most comprehensive and detailed
account yet of the violence in Rakhine state. The report accused
authorities — including Buddhist monks, local politicians and government
officials, and state security forces — of fomenting an organized
campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against a Muslim minority known as the
Rohingya. Hundreds of people were killed there, and some 125,000 people,
mostly Muslims, remain displaced with large swathes of the state
effectively segregated along sectarian lines.
On Monday, a government-appointed commission investigating the Rakhine
violence issued proposals to ease tensions there— including doubling the
number of security forces in the volatile region and introducing family
planning programs to stem population growth among minority Muslims.
___
Associated Press video journalist Raul Gallego Abellan contributed to this report.
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