Burma’s president, Thein Sein, has admitted his country’s Rohingya Muslim population has been subjected to an unprecedented wave of ethnic violence. Whole villages and large sections of towns have been destroyed.

Thein Sein’s admission follows release of shocking satellite images showing the scale of the destruction in one coastal town, where most – if not all – of the Muslim population appears to have been displaced and their homes wrecked.

The pictures, acquired by Human Rights Watch, show destruction to the town of Kyaukpyu on the country’s west coast. They reveal 14.4 hectares (35 acres) of destruction, in which some 811 buildings and houseboats have been destroyed.

According to Reuters, dozens of boats full of Rohingyas fled Kyaukpyu, an industrial zone important to China, and other recent areas of violence and were trying to reach overcrowded refugee camps around the state capital, Sittwe.

Some 3,000 Rohingyas were reported to have been blocked from reaching Sittwe by government forces and landed on a nearby island.

Rohingyas are officially stateless. The government, controlled by Buddhists, regards the estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and not as one of the country’s 135 official ethnic groups, and denies them citizenship. But many of those expelled from Kyaukpyu are not Rohingya but Muslims from the officially recognised Kaman minority, said Chris Lewa, director of the Rohingya advocacy group, Arakan Project. “It’s not just anti-Rohingya violence any more, it’s anti-Muslim,” Lewa said.   »»» The Observer

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