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Thousands protest against Rohingya killings as violence toll mounts

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DHAKA/SEOUL: Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Bangladesh on Friday to protest against the killing of Rohingya Muslims in neighbouring Myanmar even as a senior United Nations representative said more than 1,000 people may already have been killed in Myanmar, mostly Rohingya.


At least 15,000 supporters of the Islami Andolon Bangladesh party chanted slogans against Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi as they demonstrated in Dhaka and the town of Tongi to the north of the capital after Friday prayers.


“Myanmar army is carrying out a genocide of the Rohingya with the help of Suu Kyi’s government. She must be held accountable and tried,” said party spokesman K M Atiqur Rahman.


Earlier, several thousand supporters of Bangladesh’s main opposition political party formed a human chain to protest the treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority.


The UN says 270,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh in the last fortnight after fleeing Myanmar, where refugees say their villages have been burned to the ground and relatives killed by the army.


Images purportedly showing atrocities against the Rohingya have flooded Bangladeshi social media, triggering an outpouring of sympathy among locals, who have historical ties with the community.


Dhaka has protested what it called an “unprecedented influx” of Rohingya since the latest violence erupted on August 25.


In the past two weeks, the Bangladesh government has twice summoned the Myanmar envoy to express its concern over the escalation of violence.


It says the arrivals represent an “unbearable additional burden” on the poor country, already home to 400,000 Rohingya before the latest influx.


Over 1,000 ‘killed’: More than 1,000 people may already have been killed in Myanmar, mostly Rohingya — more than twice the government’s total — a senior United Nations representative said on Friday, urging Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out.


On the basis of witness testimonies and the pattern of previous outbreaks of violence, said Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, “perhaps about a thousand or more are already dead”.


“This might be from both sides but it would be heavily concentrated on the Rohingya population.”


Bangladesh has struggled to cope with the latest influx, which takes the number of Rohingya refugees in camps on its border with Myanmar to around 670,000. — AFP


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