BANGKOK (AP) – Myanmar security officials on Thursday took journalists to a still-smoldering Rohingya village where officials say members of the Muslim minority set fire to their own homes and vehicles.
Cattle and dogs wandered through the blackened, obliterated and deserted village of Ah Lel Than Kyaw in northern Rakhine state when about two dozen journalists visited. A dozen border police officers accompanied them and restricted journalists’ movement during the trip.
Some 146,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh in less than two weeks since Rohingya insurgents attacked police outposts in this village and several others Aug. 25.
The military has said nearly 400 people, most of them described as insurgents, have died in clashes and that troops have conducted “clearance operations.” It blames insurgents for setting villages on fire, without offering proof. Rohingya say they were driven out by troops and Buddhist mobs who attacked them.
Local police officer Aung Kyaw Moe said 18 people were killed in the village alone. “From our side, there was one immigration officer dead, and we found 17 dead bodies from the enemy side,” he said.