Burma-Myanmar: Violent clashes trigger wave of refugees
Tens of thousands more people have crossed by boat and on foot into Bangladesh in the last 24 hours as they flee violence in western Myanmar, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Saturday.
Both Myanmar’s security officials and insurgents from the Rohingya ethnic minority are accusing each other of burning down villages and committing atrocities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The military has said nearly 400 people, most of them insurgents, have died in armed clashes.
The violence has triggered a flood of refugees crossing mostly on foot into Bangladesh, though some were fleeing in wooden boats.
“Roughly 60,000 have arrived in Bangladesh since the violence erupted on Aug. 25,” said U.N. Refugee Agency spokeswoman Vivian Tan. That’s about 20,000 more than the number local officials had estimated on Friday.