Myanmar rioters attack Muslims and burn homes

One woman killed and about 70 houses set on fire in trouble near coastal town of Thandwe, according to police.

Hundreds of Buddhists have rioted in western Myanmar, killing a 94-year-old Muslim woman and setting more than 70 homes ablaze, police say.

Kyaw Naing, a police officer, told the AP news agency that the clashes broke out on Tuesday in Thabyachaing village, about 20km north of the coastal town of Thandwe in Rakhine state.

He said the woman died of stab wounds and between 70 and 80 houses were set on fire. Muslim residents said others were injured in the riot, but could not provide details.

Myanmar's president, Thein Sein, travelled to the western state of Rakhine on Tuesday in his first visit since sectarian violence broke out more than a year ago.

"Just military and police forces won't be enough to control the situation. These burnings, killings and violence will not happen only when you take part to maintain peace by yourself" Sein said, addressing a gathering in Pauk Taw township, one of the townships faced with unrest.

He was due to hold meetings with Buddhist and Rohingya Muslim communities during his two-day visit, according to a presidential office official.

Sectarian clashes that began in Rakhine state in June 2012 have since morphed into an anti-Muslim campaign that has spread to towns and villages nationwide.

So far, more than 200 people have been killed and more than 140,000 have fled their homes, the vast majority of them Muslims.

President Sein, who has been praised for making moves to transition from half a century of military rule, has also been criticised for failing to contain the unrest and protect the country's embattled Muslim minority.

Rioters burn down Muslim homes in Myanmar

Police in Myanmar say they have restored order after a riot during which homes and shops, largely Muslim-owned, were burned to the ground in the country's northwest.

Members of a 1,000-strong Buddhist mob torched dozens of homes and shops in Htan Gone, a village 16km south of Kantbalu town in Sagaing region, following rumours that a Muslim man tried to sexually assault a young woman, according to officials and witnesses.

State television reported that about 42 houses and 15 shops were burned and destroyed in Saturday's incident, but no injuries were reported.

The riot in Htangon, a village 16km south of Kantbalu town in Sagaing region, began after a crowd surrounded a police station, demanding that the suspect in the attempted assault be handed over, a police officer told the Associated Press news agency.

Al Jazeera's Veronica Pedrosa, reporting from Bangkok in neighbouring Thailand, said this was part of a growing cycle of religious violence in Myanmar.

"This falls into a pattern of violence against Muslims that's been happening for more than a year now," she said.

"It seems to start with an isolated criminal act, which rumours say are perpetrated by a Muslim, but then there is mob violence as a consequence.

"These thousand people were carrying swords and spears and singing the national anthem as they moved."

The predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million has been grappling with communal violence since the country's military rulers handed over power to a nominally civilian government in 2011.

The unrest, which has killed more than 250 people and left 140,000 others displaced, began last year in the western state of Rakhine, where nationalist Buddhists accuse the Rohingya Muslim community of illegally entering the country and encroaching on their land.

The violence, on a smaller scale but still deadly, spread earlier this year to other parts of the country, heightening deep-seeded prejudices against the Muslim minority and threatening Myanmar's fragile transition to democracy.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/08/20138267202217276.html