Myanmar’s Army said that it had discovered a mass grave containing the bodies of 28 Hindus, including women and children, in Rakhine State, blaming the killings on Rohingya militants.
Thousands of Hindus have fled villages where they once lived alongside Muslims, alleging that they were targeted by militants whose August 25 raids plunged Rakhine into communal violence.
The announcement could not be independently verified in a region where access has been tightly controlled by Myanmar’s army.
“Security members found and dug up 28 dead bodies of Hindus who were cruelly and violently killed by ARSA… in Rakhine State,” a statement posted on the Army chief’s website said.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) is the group whose attacks on police posts triggered an army backlash so brutal that the UN believes it amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority.
More than 4,30,000 Rohingya have fled the region to Bangladesh in under a month, telling stories of Myanmar soldiers teaming up with vigilante mobs to slaughter civilians and burn entire villages to the ground.
Around 30,000 Hindus and Buddhists based in the area have also been displaced by the violence.
The Army said that security officers found a total of 20 dead women and eight men in two graves, including six boys under the age of ten.
Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay confirmed the grim discovery to AFP, as did a senior police officer in Rakhine who requested anonymity.
The village where the bodies were found, Ye Baw Kya, lies near a cluster of Hindu and Muslim communities in northern Rakhine called Kha Maung Seik.
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