The United Nations estimates that more than 120,000 Rohingya people have fled into Bangladesh from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) in the last two weeks, a number that has jumped significantly since the U.N. refugee organization put its estimate at 60,000 people on Saturday, The Guardian reports.
The refugees are members of the Rohingya Muslim community, an ethnic minority group in Myanmar. Violence broke out after Rohingya militants clashed with Myanmar security forces, and the civilians who fled report being attacked by militants, government troops, and Buddhist mobs alike. Human Rights Watch took satellite photos of one village which appear to show "complete and total" destruction, with 99 percent of buildings ruined.
"Another 400,000 stateless Rohingya people [are] estimated to be trapped in conflict zones in western Myanmar since more 'clearance operations' by security forces in Rakhine state began last month," The Guardian adds. An estimated 15,000 people a day are expected to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh this week as thousands pour into the camps in the "no man's land" between the two countries.
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On Monday, Malala Yousafzai called on her fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's de facto leader, to condemn the country's "shameful" treatment of Rohingya. Leaders of Muslim majority nations including Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have also put pressure on Myanmar's government even as "the Western world's attention is still fixed elsewhere in Asia, on the nuclear standoff in North Korea," CNN writes.
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