Arakan News Agency
A government delegation has visited Myanmar’s Arakan State as fears of sectarian violence grow in after the coordinated attacks on Border guard police posts close near the Bangladeshi border, according to the Information Ministry.
The delegation will focus on the border district of Maungdaw district, where around 90 armed individuals attacked three police posts early Sunday, claiming 17 lives – nine police personnel and eight attackers –besides wounding nine other officers.
Myanmar Information Minister U Pe Myint will head the official team heading to Maungdaw to instruct local residents to maintain peace and stability, according to the Ministry of Information’s newspaper.
The Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State has suffered persecution and marginalization at the hands of authorities for decades, and some 140,000 people have been displaced from their homes since October 2012.
Security in the region has been beefed up with the deployment of the military, but Rohingya residents of a neighborhood in Maungdaw have said the people were killed and faced genocidal acts during a joint door-to-door search by the army and the police in their hunt for hidden weapons, as cited by locals.
