Some 45,000 Rohingya flee amid allegations of beheading, burning in Myanmar

UN rights chief Volker Turk urges Bangladesh, other countries ‘to provide effective protection’ to the latest refugees.

Escalating violence in conflict-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine State has forced another 45,000 minority Rohingya to flee, the United Nations warned, amid allegations of beheadings, killings and burnings of property.

Clashes have rocked Rakhine State since the Arakan Army (AA) rebels attacked forces of the ruling military government in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since a military coup in 2021. The fighting has caught in the middle the Muslim minority group, long considered outsiders by the majority Buddhist residents, either from the government or the rebel side.

The AA says it is fighting for more autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine population in the state, which is also home to an estimated 600,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, who have chosen to remain in the country.

More than a million Rohingya have taken shelter in neighbouring Bangladesh after fleeing Rakhine, including hundreds of thousands in 2017 during an earlier crackdown by the military that is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.

UN rights office spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told reporters in Geneva on Friday that tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in recent days by the fighting in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships.