Myanmar violence leaves more Muslims dead, disappear

More Muslims are disappearing from cities across Myanmar, with no end at sight to the sectarian violence against the country’s beleaguered Muslim community.
Reports suggest that the raging violence is displacing more Muslims, who end up in refugee camps or hide in the homes of friends or relatives after their homes, shops and mosques are destroyed.

More than 40 people have been killed and dozens injured in the violence that erupted in central Myanmar on March 20 and saw more than 1,300 homes and other buildings destroyed.

The wave of violence is now approaching the capital, Naypyidaw, while tensions in Bago, 80 kilometers northeast of Yangon, have prompted authorities to impose dusk-to-dawn curfews in five townships.

The crowds are incited by anti-Muslim rhetoric spread over the Internet and by word of mouth from monks who preach for a movement urging a boycott of Muslim-run services.

The Muslim minority in Myanmar — known as Rohingyas — accounts for about five percent of the country’s population of 60 million.

The government has been repeatedly criticized for failing to protect Rohingyas, who frequently attack the Muslim community and burn their homes in the state of Rakhine.

On Thursday, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar said he had received reports of “state involvement” in the recent violence in the central city of Meikhtila.

Tomas Ojea Quintana said soldiers and police sometimes stood by “while atrocities have been committed before their very eyes,” by well-organized Buddhist mobs.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Saturday called a ministerial meeting on April 14 in Saudi Arabia to discuss deadly violence against Muslims in Myanmar.