Myanmar govt says 84 people killed in Rakhine's Maungdaw since Aug 25 violence

The Myanmar government has claimed 84 people have been killed at Maungdaw in Rakhine State since Aug 25, the start of the latest spell of violence.

The dead people include Muslims, Hindus, ethnic Arakanese, Daignet, Mro, and security forces, Myanmar's media said on Wednesday, citing a statement from the government's Information Committee.

The statement, which also claims 44 people went missing until Tuesday, came at a time when Bangladesh was preparing for addressing the United Nations Security Council on the crisis centring Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims on Thursday.

More than 480,000 Rhingyas, the Muslim population of the Rakhine state, have crossed the border into Bangladesh since the Myanmar army launched a counter-offensive after insurgent attacks on security forces in Rakhine on Aug 25.

The refugees have described horrifying accounts of the army crackdown against the ethnic minority. They have alleged genocide, rapes, arson attacks and other forms of torture by the Myanmar security forces.

The UN has branded the operation as 'ethnic cleansing' and called for urgent humanitarian relief as the aid agencies and Bangladesh authorities are struggling to handle the newly arrived refugees.

Bangladesh is already home to another 400,000 refugees who had fled decades of persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Photo: Reuters

Myanmar government accuses international media of exaggeration in reporting the situation in Rakhine, despite blocking the media into the trouble-torn area.

The international media also question the statements of the Myanmar government controlled by the military even after the victory of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's party in elections in 2015.

Suu Kyi is also facing criticism for not mentioning the Rohingya plight in her speeches.

She claimed in a speech on Sept 5 that the violence in Rakhine had stopped.

But rights groups later said arson attacks continued in Rakhine. They showed satellite images to back their claim.  

From Bangladesh, smoke was seen rising from Myanmar side of the border.

Some media were taken to the strife-torn area following the criticism. But the journalists found the anomalies in the army-controlled government's statements during the field visit.

According to Wednesday's statement, a total of 163 people have been killed since insurgent attacks on police posts in October last year.

As many as 91 people went missing in the period, the statement said.

Earlier, the Myanmar authorities claimed to have found a mass grave of Hindus allegedly killed by 'Rohingya militants'. The authorities said 45 bodies of Hindus were found.

Citing official data published by the military, Reuters reported on Sept 1 that nearly 400 people died in a week as Myanmar army stepped up the crackdown on Rohingya militants.