Image / (AFP).
Myanmar’s army says it is investigating a mass grave found in a village in northern Rakhine state, a region where the UN has accused troops of committing atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.
Meanwhile," Northern Rakhine has been nearly emptied of its Muslim population since late August, when an army crackdown on Rohingya rebels sent more than 655,000 refugees fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.
A statement posted on the army chief’s Facebook page late Monday said a tip-off led officers to “unidentified dead bodies found at a cemetary in Inn Dinn village,” a community in Rakhine’s Maungdaw township — the epicenter of the violence.
It did not specify how many corpses were found or what community they belong to.
The UN, US and rights groups have accused Myanmar of carrying out a systematic ethnic cleansing campaign against the stateless Muslim minority, with Doctors Without Borders estimating that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of violence.
On Tuesday Human Rights Watch released a report detailing the army’s “systematic killings and rape” of hundreds of Rohingya in Tula Toli village in northern Rakhine on August 30, adding new testimony to an event that has been documented by journalists and rights groups based on accounts from refugees.
But Myanmar’s army has denied all allegations of abuse — while severely curtailing access to the conflict zone in northern Rakhine.
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