One dead after fresh Myanmar anti-Muslim riots, say police

One person was killed and nine injured after mobs attacked mosques and burned homes in central Myanmar, authorities said on Wednesday, in the latest religious unrest to erupt in the nation.

Riots sparked on Tuesday in the small town of Oakkan, around 100km north of Yangon after a woman accidentally knocked into a young monk, authorities said, amid acute Buddhist-Muslim tensions following a series of attacks in March.

“A man died in hospital of his injuries this morning,” a police official said.

Authorities have arrested 18 people after some 77 homes in four villages in the region north of the commercial hub Yangon were burned during a spate of arson on Tuesday evening, president’s spokesman Ye Htut said in a Facebook update.

Terrified villagers of both faiths said police were not there to protect them when a crowd attacked a local mosque on Tuesday evening in Mie Laung Sakhan village.

“About 200 to 300 people arrived in our village on motorcycles and destroyed the mosque. All the villagers ran away. We were scared and didn’t resist. They destroyed until they were satisfied,” Soe Myint, 48, a Muslim in Mie Laung Sakhan village, said.

The village mosque was seriously damaged and around 10 homes burned, according to an AFP journalist at the scene. No security presence was visible until late morning, when about 30 police arrived.