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07-03-2016, 05:03 AM
YANGON: Nearly 100 police guarded a **rthern Myanmar village on Saturday after a Buddhist mob burned down a mosque, a police ******r said, in the second attack of its kind in just over a week as anti-Muslim sentiment swells in the Southeast Asian nation.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has struggled to contain bouts of deadly religious bloodshed in recent years, with bristling sectarian tensions posing a core challenge to the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The latest flare-up in violence saw throngs of Buddhist villagers in Hpakant, a jade-mining town in **rthern Kachin state, storm a mosque and set it ablaze on Friday.
"The problem started because the mosque was built near a Buddhist pagoda. The Muslim people refused to destroy the building when the Buddhists discovered it," Moe Lwin, a local police ******r, told AFP. He said around 90 police ******rs are **w stationed in the village, where the situation has calmed. ** arrests have been made, he added.
The riot, which took place during the holy month of Ramazan, came eight days after a crowd of Buddhists destroyed a**ther mosque in central Bago, forcing the Muslim community to seek refuge in a neighbouring town.
Tensions are also simmering in western Rakhine, a state scarred by deadly riots in 2012 that left communities almost completely divided along religious lines.
The region is home to the stateless Rohingya, a Muslim mi**rity largely relegated to destitute displacement camps and subject to host of restrictions on their movements and access to basic services.
Suu Kyi, a veteran democracy activist who championed her country’s struggle against repressive military rulers, has drawn criticism from rights groups for **t taking swifter moves to carve out a solution for the ethnic mi**rity.
Her government recently ordered officials to refer to the group as "people who believe in Islam in Rakhine State" instead of Rohingya -- a term whose use has set off protests by hardline Buddhists who insist the group are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
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Buddhist-majority Myanmar has struggled to contain bouts of deadly religious bloodshed in recent years, with bristling sectarian tensions posing a core challenge to the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The latest flare-up in violence saw throngs of Buddhist villagers in Hpakant, a jade-mining town in **rthern Kachin state, storm a mosque and set it ablaze on Friday.
"The problem started because the mosque was built near a Buddhist pagoda. The Muslim people refused to destroy the building when the Buddhists discovered it," Moe Lwin, a local police ******r, told AFP. He said around 90 police ******rs are **w stationed in the village, where the situation has calmed. ** arrests have been made, he added.
The riot, which took place during the holy month of Ramazan, came eight days after a crowd of Buddhists destroyed a**ther mosque in central Bago, forcing the Muslim community to seek refuge in a neighbouring town.
Tensions are also simmering in western Rakhine, a state scarred by deadly riots in 2012 that left communities almost completely divided along religious lines.
The region is home to the stateless Rohingya, a Muslim mi**rity largely relegated to destitute displacement camps and subject to host of restrictions on their movements and access to basic services.
Suu Kyi, a veteran democracy activist who championed her country’s struggle against repressive military rulers, has drawn criticism from rights groups for **t taking swifter moves to carve out a solution for the ethnic mi**rity.
Her government recently ordered officials to refer to the group as "people who believe in Islam in Rakhine State" instead of Rohingya -- a term whose use has set off protests by hardline Buddhists who insist the group are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
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