Thousands more Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar by land, sea

Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority use a local boat to cross a stream after crossing over to the Bangladesh side of the border near Cox's Bazar's Dakhinpara area, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims are pouring into Bangladesh, part of an exodus of the beleaguered ethnic group from neighboring Myanmar that began when violence erupted there on August 25. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue) Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority use a local boat to cross a stream after crossing over to the Bangladesh side of the border near Cox's Bazar's Dakhinpara area, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims are pouring into Bangladesh, part of an exodus of the beleaguered ethnic group from neighboring Myanmar that began when violence erupted there on August 25. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

By Associated Press September 2, 2017 3 min read

SHAH PORIR DWIP, Bangladesh (AP) – Tens of thousands more people have crossed by boat and on foot into Bangladesh in the last 24 hours as they flee violence in western Myanmar, the UNHCR said Saturday.

Both Myanmar’s security officials and insurgents from the Rohingya ethnic minority are accusing each other of burning down villages and committing atrocities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The military has said nearly 400 people, most of them insurgents, have died in armed clashes.

The violence has triggered a flood of refugees crossing mostly on foot into Bangladesh, though some were fleeing in wooden boats.

“Roughly 60,000 have arrived in Bangladesh since the violence erupted on Aug. 25,” said U.N. Refugee Agency spokeswoman Vivian Tan. That is about 20,000 more than the number local officials had estimated on Friday.

Refugees who had arrived at the Bangladeshi fishing village of Shah Porir Dwip described bombs exploding and Rohingyas being burned alive.