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A militant group has warned of a "war" against the
Myanmar Government, taking responsibility for attacks on police stations
that have left more than 100 people dead.
On Friday, militants
from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which claims to be
fighting for the rights of Rohingya people — a Muslim minority long-persecuted by Myanmar's Buddhist majority — attacked about 25 police posts in the country's west.
A
new video posted on social media showed the group's leader Abu Ammar
Jununi flanked by two masked men with assault rifles and saying the
recent violence was in response to harassment from Myanmar's security
forces and blockades of Rohingya villages.
He called on
international aid groups to stay and help, but the United Nations is
evacuating all non-essential staff for the region.
Who are the Rohingya?
On Monday, Myanmar security forces reportedly
intensified operations against the Rohingya insurgents, according to
local authorities, in what is being treated as the worst violence
involving Myanmar's Muslim minority in five years.
The fighting has killed 104 people and led to the flight of large numbers of Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist civilians from the northern part of Rakhine state.
The violence marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since October,
when a similar but much smaller series of Rohingya attacks on security
posts prompted a brutal military response dogged by allegations of
rights abuses.
The treatment of about 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya
in mainly Buddhist Myanmar has emerged as the biggest challenge for
national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has condemned the attacks and
commended the security forces.
The Nobel peace laureate has been
accused by some Western critics of not speaking out on behalf of the
long-persecuted minority, and of defending the army's sweep after the
October attacks.
'If ARSA is active, the situation will be tense': police
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The Rohingya are denied citizenship in
Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots
there that go back centuries, with communities marginalised and
occasionally subjected to communal violence.
'Genocide' in Myanmar
A report says that the systematic violation of human rights against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine falls within a defined framework of genocide.
"Now the situation is not good," police officer Tun Hlaing said, referring to the Rohingya insurgents.
"Everything depends on them — if they're active, the situation will be tense."
Rohingya villagers make up the majority in the area.
The
latest unrest has again exposed the dark side of Myanmar's historic
opening: an unleashing of ethnic hatred that was suppressed during 49
years of strict military rule that ended when the generals stepped back
from direct rule in 2011.
The following year, hundreds of people,
most of them Rohingya, were killed in communal clashes in Rakhine state
and about 140,000 people were displaced.
ABC/Reuters
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