RFA English
May 30, 2017
A local
administrator was found dead in Buthidaung township in western Myanmar’s
turbulent Rakhine state on Sunday, the State Counselor’s Office announced on
Tuesday.
An unknown group of
people killed Tahhrl, the administrator of the township’s Michaung Khaungswae
village, in a nighttime attack, the announcement said.
His body was found
with stab wounds on his neck and cuts on his right eyebrow and lips, it said.
Local police opened
a case, and an investigation is under way.
Other recent deaths
possibly caused by extremists blamed for a major attack on government guard
posts last October have occurred in the area.
An administrative
official from Pazonchaung village in Buthidaung township was killed by unknown
assailants on May 19, while another while another remains missing after being
abducted.
An accidental
explosion of handmade bombs in Buthidaung’s Theni village on May 4 killed two
people and injured three others as the victims assembled bombs. Security
personnel who checked the village the following day found bags of potassium
nitrate, sulfur, coal powder, and other materials used to make bombs near a
forest.
Thirty civilians
have been killed and 22 others have gone missing in neighboring Maungdaw
township since Oct. 9, 2016, when deadly attacks on three local border guard
posts occurred.
Buthidaung, along
with Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships in the northern part of Rakhine state,
were under a four-month crackdown from October 2016 to February 2017 after the
raid by a militant group that claimed to represent the country’s Muslim
Rohingya community.
About 1,000 people
were killed during the crackdown, and roughly 90,000 Rohingya were displaced,
with most of them fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh where they are living in
refugee camps.
Rakhine state is
home to about 1.1 million Rohingya, about 120,000 of whom live in internally
displaced persons camps as a result of communal violence with majority
Buddhists in 2012.
The Rohingya are
denied basic rights, freedom of movement, and access to social services and
education because they are viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh,
although most have lived in Myanmar for generations.
Reported by Kyaw Thu
for RFA’s Myanmar Service; translated by Khet Mar and written in English by
Roseanne Gerin.