More Than 70 Killed in Fighting in Western Myanmar

An empty street in Maungdaw township, in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, on Friday after the authorities told residents to stay in their homes after an attack by Rohingya militants.
Wai Moe/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

HONG KONG — More than 70 people were killed on Friday in clashes between militants and security forces in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, which outside observers called a worrying upsurge of violence in the troubled region.

The dead included at least 12 members of the security forces and at least 59 Rohingya insurgents, according to a statement from the office of Myanmar’s de facto leader, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi. Myanmar’s armed forces said the militants used knives, small arms and explosives in coordinated early morning attacks on several police and military posts around Buthidaung and Maungdaw, near Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh.

Rakhine is home to about one million Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim minority group that faces repression in Myanmar, where they are largely confined to camps and denied full citizenship rights.

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