Myanmar’s Suu Kyi visits violence-torn Rohingya Muslim region for first time
Sittwe — On Thursday, Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi visited areas riven by ethnic violence for the first time since hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims began fleeing the country to escape a brutal military operation launched in late August. Reuters photographers saw thousands of desperate Rohingya wade through shallows and narrow creeks between islands of the Naf River to reach neighbouring Bangladesh the previous evening. Some had small boats or pulled makeshift rafts to get to Bangladesh on the river’s western bank, but most walked, children cradled in their arms and the elderly carried on their backs, with sacks of belongings tied to staves on their shoulders. Reaching the far side, some women and older people had to be pulled through the mud to reach dry land atop steep banks. More than 4,000 crossed at different points on the river on Wednesday, Maj Mohammed Iqbal, a Bangladesh security official in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar, told Reuters. A Reuter...
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