Mobs ransacked homes and police rounded up Muslims for their "own safety" to sites that would later be turned into camps. More than 200 died, tens of thousands were displaced and the stage was set for the bloody purge of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine five years later. "The people from the town didn't attack us," Htoo Maung says, suggesting outsiders were to blame. Kyaukphyu ethnic Rakhine MP Kyaw Than insists his town is ready to welcome the Muslims back, but can only do so with the government's green light. Htoo Maung tells AFP, as he looks at the overgrown patch of land where his house once stood.

Source: Bangkok Post November 21, 2019 03:48 UTC