Rohingya Muslims being wiped off Myanmar's map


              FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017 file photo, flames engulf a house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar. Security forces and allied mobs have burned down thousands of homes in Northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, in recent weeks. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017 file photo, flames engulf a house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar. Security forces and allied mobs have burned down thousands of homes in Northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, in recent weeks. (AP Photo, File)

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Rohingya Muslims are quite literally being wiped off the map in Myanmar.

After attacks by Muslim militants last month, thousands of homes were burned in Rohingya enclaves of the predominantly Buddhist nation.

More than 500,000 people - roughly half their population - fled to neighboring Bangladesh in the past year, most in the last three weeks. And they are still leaving.

The Rohingya's plight has been decried as ethnic cleansing. And despite assurances Tuesday by Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, few believe they will ever be welcomed back.

The Arakan Project, which works to improve conditions for the ethnic minority, is documenting attacks on three Rohingya townships.

Satellite imagery released by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday shows swaths of scorched landscape and the near-total destruction of 214 villages.

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