By AFP February 24, 2018
Yangon (AFP) - Three bombs exploded in different
locations around Rakhine's state capital Sittwe early Saturday morning,
including at the home of a high ranking official, Myanmar police told AFP,
adding that no deaths were reported.
It is the latest violence to hit Rakhine, which is
festering with ethnic tensions and has been roiled by communal violence in the
north against the Rohingya and insurgencies in other parts of the state.
Bombings in the state capital are rare however.
"Three bombs exploded and three other unexploded
bombs were found. A police officer was injured but not seriously," a
senior officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.
One exploded in the compound of the state government
secretary's home, while the two others hit in front of an office in the city
and on a road leading to a beach.
A local official from the state government also confirmed
the explosions.
The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
"Some streets are being blocked by police already
because of the bomb blasts," Zaw Zaw, a local resident of Sittwe, told AFP
by phone.
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The explosions come almost exactly six months to the day
since northern Rakhine was plunged into crisis on August 25 when Rohingya
rebels raided police posts, killing at least a dozen officials.
Myanmar's military responded with a ruthless campaign
that the UN says amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population, who
are now overwhelmingly based in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Myanmar authorities deny committing any atrocities but
have blocked UN investigators from investigating the conflict zone, where
thousands of Rohingya are believed to have been killed.
Sittwe was once home to a sizeable Rohingya population
but most were forced to abandon their homes by deadly communal violence in
2012.
Today a small community of Rohingya are confined to a
Muslim enclave in the city while more than 100,000 others are still living in
squalid displacement camps outside the capital.
In a separate conflict in Rakhine state last month, seven
people were killed and a dozen injured when police opened fire on a crowd of
ethnic Rakhine Buddhists who were trying to seize a government office in the
town of Mrauk U.
The violence prompted an ethnic Rakhine rebel group in
the state to promise "serious" retaliation for the deaths of the
protesters.
Around two weeks later the town's administrator was found
murdered on the side of the road.