Anti-Muslim violence flared anew in central Myanmar yesterday as angry mobs destroyed two mosques and set fire to hundreds of homes and shops in unrest that injured at least 10 people in the predominantly Buddhist nation.
Gangs armed with bricks smashed the mosques’ windows and looted dozens of shops in the town of Okkan after a Muslim woman collided with a Buddhist monk while walking in the street, angering residents, a police statement said. Columns of smoke rose outside Okkan, where regional police chief Win Naing said mobs launched arson attacks in three villages.
He said there were no immediate reports of deaths, but at least 10 people had been injured.
Sectarian clashes between Buddhists and Muslims, who make up about 5 per cent of Myanmar’s population, have regularly erupted since a quasi-civilian government took power in March 2011 after five decades of military dictatorship.
Rioting broke out in March in the central town of Meiktila and justice and security is still elusive for those who lost their homes in the rampage.
Many were detained in prison-like camps after the four days of violence. The unrest killed 43 people, most of them Muslims, displaced nearly 13,000 and touched off a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment fuelled by radical Buddhist monks.
“It’s for their own security,” said a police officer at a camp in Meiktila’s outskirts. The camp holds more than 1,600 people guarded by police officers with orders not to let them leave.
A dawn-to-dusk curfew has been in force in Meiktila since the government declared martial law on March 22.
Trials have begun but, so far, only Muslims stand accused, raising fears that courts will further aggravate religious tensions by ignoring the Buddhist ringleaders of the violence.
An independent commission released a report on Monday saying Myanmar must urgently address the plight of Muslims displaced by sectarian bloodshed in the western Rakhine state. It came in response to violence last year that killed 192 people and left 140,000 homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims in an area dominated by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
The government has promised to help Muslims rebuild their homes, but reconstruction has yet to begin. Building more than 1,500 houses burned down or damaged would cost US$7 million (S$8.6 million), it said.
The trial of seven Muslim men accused of murdering a monk, believed to be the first killing in the March unrest in Meiktila, is expected to conclude this week.
Hostility could influence the outcome of the trial, said Mr Thein Than Oo, a lawyer for three of the Muslims accused, who believed the judge is under pressure from Buddhist residents to deliver a guilty verdict. He pointed to the case of the Muslim owner of a shop, his wife and an employee, who received 14 years without parole for theft and assault. The charges stemmed from an argument with a Buddhist customer, which sparked the first bout of rioting.
Source: REUTERS