YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces shot dead at least six people in the troubled western state of Rakhine on Thursday, after soldiers and police detained hundreds of people at a school, a military spokesman said.

The soldiers had rounded up about 275 people during a search for members of the rebel Arakan Army, said Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun from the military’s True News Information Team.

There were conflicting accounts of events leading up to the shooting, which took place in an area off-limits to reporters and most aid agencies.

Zaw Min Tun said some of the detainees attempted to seize weapons in the early hours of the morning, forcing security forces to fire into a crowd.

“We warned them verbally. Then we fired warning shots into the air to disperse the group but they didn’t move, so shots were fired,” he said.

Rakhine came to global attention after about 730,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed into Bangladesh fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks in 2017. U.N. investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson. The military denies widespread wrongdoing.

More recently, civilians have been caught up in clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state.

Since November, the fighting has displaced nearly 33,000 people across a large part of central and northern Rakhine and part of neighboring Chin state, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The military has initiated legal action against two news organizations, accusing them of defamation for reports that detailed the alleged shooting of civilians by soldiers in March.

Zaw Min Tun told Reuters military and police searching the Rathedaung area’s Kyauk Tan village for suspected Arakan Army members found scores of people who were not registered with authorities as living there, so gathered those people in the school.

According to a preliminary investigation, he said, six people were killed after the alleged altercation at 2 a.m. on Thursday.

As well as those killed in the shooting, eight people had been brought to the hospital in nearby Zedi Pyin village with gunshots wounds, said Maung Soe Win, chairman of the Mayu Region Development Association, a local community group, who was at the hospital.

The injured people said they had been detained for two days when one villager with a mental health problem “got up, shouted and ran away in the middle of the night”, said Maung Soe Win.

“Then (security forces) shot the villagers continuously,” he told Reuters by phone.

Another military spokesman, Major General Tun Tun Nyi, said on Thursday afternoon the remaining villagers were still being held at the school and investigated for links to the Arakan Army. </s> YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar security forces shot dead at least six people in the troubled western state of Rakhine on Thursday, after soldiers and police detained hundreds of people at a school, a military spokesman said.

Medical staff transfer injured patients from a Zay Di Pyin station hospital to Sittwe General Hospital in Sittwe, Myanmar, May 2, 2019. INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS via REUTERS

The soldiers had rounded up about 275 people during a search for members of the rebel Arakan Army, said Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun from the military’s True News Information Team.

There were conflicting accounts of events leading up to the shooting, which took place in an area off-limits to reporters and most aid agencies.

Zaw Min Tun said some of the detainees attempted to seize weapons in the early hours of the morning, forcing security forces to fire into a crowd.

“We warned them verbally. Then we fired warning shots into the air to disperse the group but they didn’t move, so shots were fired,” he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and Myanmar Red Cross said in a statement they had transferred three “seriously injured patients” to hospital in the state capital of Sittwe, as well as two other “civilians” to a local hospital.

“The ICRC is concerned about increasing numbers of civilian casualties during the recent weeks, and urge all parties to the conflict to protect the civilian population in line with International Humanitarian Law,” said Stephan Sakalian, head of delegation in Myanmar for the ICRC.

Rakhine came to global attention after about 730,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed into Bangladesh fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks in 2017. U.N. investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson. The military denies widespread wrongdoing.

More recently, civilians have been caught up in clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state.

Since November, the fighting has displaced nearly 33,000 people across a large part of central and northern Rakhine and part of neighbouring Chin state, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The military has initiated legal action against two news organisations, accusing them of defamation for reports that detailed the alleged shooting of civilians by soldiers in March.

Zaw Min Tun told Reuters military and police searching the Rathedaung area’s Kyauk Tan village for suspected Arakan Army members found scores of people who were not registered with authorities as living there, so gathered those people in the school.

According to a preliminary investigation, he said, six people were killed after the alleged altercation at 2 a.m. on Thursday.

As well as those killed in the shooting, eight people had been brought to the hospital in nearby Zedi Pyin village with gunshots wounds, said Maung Soe Win, chairman of the Mayu Region Development Association, a local community group, who was at the hospital.

The injured people said they had been detained for two days when one villager with a mental health problem “got up, shouted and ran away in the middle of the night”, said Maung Soe Win.

“Then (security forces) shot the villagers continuously,” he told Reuters by phone.

Another military spokesman, Major General Tun Tun Nyi, said on Thursday afternoon the remaining villagers were still being held at the school and investigated for links to the Arakan Army. </s> YANGON: Myanmar’s army said it shot dead six detainees in a village school on Thursday while holding 275 men on suspicion of being Rakhine rebels, as fears over military impunity grow in the escalating fighting.

Security forces are battling the Arakan Army (AA), a group pushing for more autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. Thousands of troops have been re-deployed to the poor western state, which in 2017 was the scene of the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims.

UN investigators say the violence against the Rohingya amounted to "genocide". More than 30,000 people have been forced from their homes in clashes with the AA since January. On Tuesday, troops descended on Kyauk Tan village in Rathedaung township, separating men aged between 15 and 50, local and military sources confirmed.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told AFP on Thursday that 275 people "were being temporarily held in the village school for investigation". Shots were fired in the school early on Thursday morning when the detainees tried to "attack the security forces" who had no option but to shoot, Zaw Min Tun said. </s> UNHCR says Rohingya Muslims returns to Myanmar must not be rushed or premature

Myanmar military on Thursday shot dead seven civilians, who were among many villagers detained for interrogation in the country's Rakhine state, a lawmaker said.

The military earlier this week announced that it rounded up several hundred people in several villages in Rakhine state's Yathay Taung Township for questioning for their alleged ties to the Arakan Army, an ethnic rebel group.

It also said 275 men were held for interrogation at a school in Kyauk Tan village in Yathay Taung Township.

Soldiers on Thursday opened fire as a clash erupted with the detained villagers, according to Khim Maung Lat, a member of the country's upper house of the parliament.

"Seven villagers were shot dead and eight others were seriously injured," he told Anadolu Agency by phone.

"Before this accident, four civilians were also killed during the interrogation in other villages," he said.

The lawmaker said the military has ignored the request made by regional parliament to hand over the detainees to police.

"Civilians are being killed. It is unacceptable," he added.

Brig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a military spokesman, has confirmed the killing of six civilians.

According to him, the villagers attempt to seize weapons and harm the security forces during the interrogation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and Myanmar Red Cross said in a statement they had transferred three "seriously injured patients" to hospital in the state capital of Sittwe, as well as two other "civilians" to a local hospital.

"The ICRC is concerned about increasing numbers of civilian casualties during the recent weeks, and urge all parties to the conflict to protect the civilian population in line with International Humanitarian Law," said Stephan Sakalian, head of delegation in Myanmar for the ICRC.

Rakhine came to global attention after about 730,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed into Bangladesh fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks in 2017. U.N. investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson. The military denies widespread wrongdoing.

More recently, civilians have been caught up in clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state.

Since November, the fighting has displaced nearly 33,000 people across a large part of central and northern Rakhine and part of neighboring Chin state, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The military has initiated legal action against two news organizations, accusing them of defamation for reports that detailed the alleged shooting of civilians by soldiers in March.

Zaw Min Tun told Reuters military and police searching the Rathedaung area's Kyauk Tan village for suspected Arakan Army members found scores of people who were not registered with authorities as living there, so gathered those people in the school.

As well as those killed in the shooting, eight people had been brought to the hospital in nearby Zedi Pyin village with gunshots wounds, said Maung Soe Win, chairman of the Mayu Region Development Association, a local community group, who was at the hospital.

The injured people said they had been detained for two days when one villager with a mental health problem "got up, shouted and ran away in the middle of the night," said Maung Soe Win.

"Then (security forces) shot the villagers continuously," he told Reuters by phone.

Another military spokesman, Major General Tun Tun Nyi, said on Thursday afternoon the remaining villagers were still being held at the school and investigated for links to the Arakan Army. </s> YANGON: Myanmar's army said it shot dead six detainees in a village school Thursday while holding 275 men on suspicion of being Rakhine rebels, as fears over military impunity grow in the escalating fighting.

Security forces are battling the Arakan Army, a group pushing for more autonomy for the state's ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

Thousands of troops have been re-deployed to the poor western state, which in 2017 was the scene of the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims.

UN investigators say the violence against the Rohingya amounted to "genocide".

More than 30,000 people have been forced from their homes in clashes with the AA since January.

On Tuesday, troops descended on Kyauk Tan village in Rathedaung township, separating men aged between 15 and 50, local and military sources confirmed.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told AFP Thursday that 275 people "were being temporarily held in the village school for investigation".

READ HERE | Outcry mounts over custodial deaths of Rakhine men in Myanmar

Shots were fired in the school early Thursday morning when the detainees tried to "attack the security forces" who had no option but to shoot, Zaw Min Tun said.

"Six were killed, eight were injured and four escaped," he said, adding warning shots had been first been fired and the wounded had been sent to hospital.

The six bodies were placed "in front of the school in plain view," villager Aye Maung told AFP by phone.

"They (the remaining detainees) are being held hostage and we're worried for their safety too," he said.

By Thursday evening, the village was still completely sealed off, said 57-year-old local resident Tun Aye Thein, adding there were "no AA members" in the village.

"We don't know what they (the military) will do as they've surrounded us," he said.

Local MP Tin Maung Win tried to enter Wednesday but said he was turned away by the army, adding he was "worried" for local residents.

The north of Rakhine state is in strict lockdown, making any independent verification difficult.

The latest killings come after outrage triggered by the deaths in April of three ethnic Rakhine in military custody -- and the secret cremation of their bodies.

The armed forces said two of the deaths were due to "heart failure" but did not give details of the third, cremating all three before their families could see them.

Campaign group Fortify Rights said the deaths show the military continues to act with "total impunity".

Rakhine is one of Myanmar's poorest regions and is deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines. </s> YANGON: Myanmar’s army said it shot dead six detainees in a village school Thursday while holding 275 men on suspicion of being Rakhine rebels, as fears over military impunity grow in the escalating fighting. Security forces are battling the Arakan Army (AA), a group pushing for more autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. Thousands of troops have been re-deployed to the poor western state, which in 2017 was the scene of the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims. UN investigators say the violence against the Rohingya amounted to “genocide”. More than 30,000 people have been forced from their homes in clashes with the AA since January. On Tuesday, troops descended on Kyauk Tan village in Rathedaung township, separating men aged between 15 and 50, local and military sources confirmed. </s> YANGON (Reuters) - Arakan Army insurgents killed nine Myanmar police in the latest attack in the country’s western Rakhine State, the government said on Sunday, as clashes threaten to engulf a large part of the troubled region.

Villagers heard gunfire as fighters from the armed group, which recruits from the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, raided a police post in the village of Yoe Ta Yoke late on Saturday night.

The Myanmar Ministry of Information said on its Facebook page that nine police, all of them recruits from nearby the village, were confirmed dead and one other was still missing on Sunday.

“Around 60 members of the AA terrorist group attacked using small and large weapons,” the statement said.

The insurgent Arakan Army killed 13 police in a similar attack further north in January and has frequently clashed with Myanmar security forces since December.

Myanmar’s leaders vowed to crush the rebels, who are fighting for autonomy for Rakhine, but clashes have spread to new areas, displacing more than 5,000 people in all. Authorities have declared large parts of the north of the state off-limits to most aid agencies.

In 2017, attacks on security posts by insurgents from the Muslim Rohingya minority provoked a military crackdown in the north of the state. U.N. agencies say more than 730,000 people fled into camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.

Saturday night’s attack took place about 50 km (31 miles) north of the Rakhine state capital Sittwe, along the main road connecting the city with the rest of Myanmar.

A villager in his fifties told Reuters that two policemen stationed at the post survived the attack, which took place shortly after 11 p.m.

“The battle went on for about 20 minutes,” said the villager, who asked not to be named. “I was in village at that time and I heard gun shots, but the villagers didn’t run away.”

Myanmar’s military said in a separate statement on Sunday that troops clashed on Saturday with about 200 men from the Arakan Army at a different location, along Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh. </s> Armed men believed to be from the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority launched a coordinated assault on three border police posts in the early hours Sunday, killing nine police, injuring five and making off with dozens of weapons and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

Military personnel and police reinforcements have poured into the Muslim-majority township of Maungdaw, northern Rakhine State, and have clashed with groups of up to 300 men, armed with pistols, swords and knives, according to official reports.

Human rights groups and advocates for the stateless Rohingya have voiced concern that the civilian population may be caught up in the authorities' violent response.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said that her government was "exercising the rule of law" in dealing with the attacks, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Thursday.

Authorities had not yet confirmed who was behind the attacks, Suu Kyi said on Wednesday.

The military's official newspaper, Myawady, said that another 10 alleged attackers were killed, and a rifle was seized, in a clash on Tuesday morning at Kyetyoepyin village, Maungdaw Township.

In a separate incident on Wednesday, the military accused armed attackers of setting fire to 25 houses after an aborted attack on border police quarters in Kyikanpyin village, the site of one of Sunday's attacks.

The killings bring the total death toll in northern Rakhine State since Sunday to 39, including 13 security personnel.

The 26 alleged attackers reported killed include several who a local resident told Reuters were shot while unarmed and fleeing soldiers.

Campaign group Fortify Rights said on Wednesday it had received reports of extrajudicial killings in the area and called on Myanmar's government to "protect civilians regardless of religion or ethnicity."

Authorities have also detained four men, identified as local Muslims, who they allege were involved in the attacks.

The Rohingya bore the brunt of intercommunal clashes in Rakhine in 2012, in which more 100 people were killed. They make up most of the 125,000 people still living in displacement camps in Rakhine State and face severe restrictions on their movements. </s> Arakan Army insurgents killed nine Myanmar police in the latest attack in the country’s western Rakhine State, a local official said Sunday, as clashes threaten to engulf a large part of the troubled region.

Villagers heard gunfire as fighters from the armed group, which recruits from the mainly Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, raided a police post in the village of Yoe Ta Yoke late on Saturday night.

The village’s administrator San Aung Thein confirmed nine police were killed by the Arakan Army there, but said he did not have additional details about the attack.

Reuters was unable to reach police officials for comment.

The insurgent Arakan Army killed 13 police in a similar attack farther north in January and has frequently clashed with Myanmar security forces since December.

Myanmar’s leaders vowed to crush the rebels, who are fighting for autonomy for Rakhine, but clashes have spread to new areas, displacing more than 5,000 people in all. Authorities have declared large parts of the north of the state off-limits to most aid agencies.

In 2017, attacks on security posts by insurgents from the Muslim Rohingya minority provoked a military crackdown in the north of the state. U.N. agencies say more than 730,000 people fled into camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.

Saturday night’s attack took place about 50 km (31 miles) north of the Rakhine state capital Sittwe, along the main road connecting the city with the rest of Myanmar.

A villager in his 50s told Reuters that two policemen stationed at the post survived the attack, which took place shortly after 11 p.m. local time.

“The battle went on for about 20 minutes,” said the villager, who asked not to be named. “I was in village at that time and I heard gun shots, but the villagers didn’t run away.”
Myanmar security forces fire into a crowd of 275 Rakhine people detained during a search for Arakan Army members, killing six and wounding eight. The military claim that they were forced to shoot after some of the detainees attempted to seize their weapons, despite warning shots and verbal warnings.