87,000 Rohingya migrants arrive in Bangladesh: UN

At least 87,000 Rohingya Muslim migrants arrived in Bangladesh last week from Myanmar, a UN official said here on Monday.

The official told Efe news that 81,000 migrants were currently lodged in makeshift shelters and the remaining 6,000 settled with relatives in the permanent refugee camps in Cox's Bazar district.

Thousands continued to arrive at the border, some of them with gunshot wounds, fleeing sectarian violence in Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine state.

On August 25, the Myanmar Army began an operation following armed assaults on several police posts by hundreds of Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) rebels.

Hundreds of people, mostly Rohingyas, were killed during the attacks and the government response later.

International organisations have reported claims of human rights violations and summary executions allegedly carried out by the Myanmar army.

On Friday, the UN expressed deep concern at reports about violence committed by the security forces in Myanmar and made an appeal for calm to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

The exodus of Rohingyas from Rakhine comes after at least 70,000 Rohingyas fled the same area amid alleged attacks by the military following a similar assault on border posts by the group's militants in October 2016.

The military's response was slammed by the UN for human rights violations.

More than a million Rohingyas live in Rakhine, where they face growing discrimination due to sectarian conflict, which killed at least 160 people in 2012 and displaced nearly 120,000.

Myanmar authorities do not recognise members of the community as citizens, while Bangladesh considers them to fall under Myanmar's authority.

Between 300,000 and 500,000 Rohingyas live in Bangladesh, of whom only about 32,000 have refugee status.

--IANS

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