Buddhists mob torches mosque in Myanmar
 

Yangon, Myanmar: Nearly 100 police guarded a **rthern Myanmar village 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.



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