Burma: HRW satellite images 'show Rakhine destruction'
/A human rights group has released pictures showing what appears to be the destruction of a western Burmese district riven by ethnic unrest.
Human Rights Watch says more than 800 buildings and houseboats were burned.
Satellite images show a 35-acre area burned to the ground in Kyaukpyu, a coastal town in Rakhine state, it says.
The US-based group says most of the inhabitants were Muslim Rohingyas, the target of attacks by non-Muslims who say they do not belong in Burma.
Many of the inhabitants are thought to have fled by boat out to sea.
"Burma's government urgently needs to provide security for the Rohingya in [Rakhine] State, who are under vicious attack," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"Unless the authorities also start addressing the root causes of the violence, it is only likely to get worse."
The UN earlier warned the country's reform programme could be put at risk by continued communal violence between local groups of vigilante Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in the western state.
At least 64 people were killed this week, officials said, in the first serious outburst of violence since June, when a state of emergency was declared in Rakhine.
At that time deadly clashes claimed dozens of lives and thousands of people were forced to flee their homes - many are yet to return.
Blaming each other
Non-Muslims are reporting that this time they too were fired on by government forces during the unrest, and suffered many casualties.
The government has declared a curfew in the affected areas, but its response since the violence first broke out in June is being widely criticised as inadequate, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok.
On Friday six towns were hit by clashes and a night-time curfew is in place in several locations including Min Bya and Mrauk Oo where the latest spate of violence began.
It is unclear what prompted the latest clashes. The Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims, believed to be mainly Rohingya, blame each other for the violence.
In Bangladesh, border officials said they believed several boats with Rohingyas on board were waiting to try to cross the river from Burma. One official said 52 Rohingyas had been sent back in the last few days.
Muslims throughout Burma have abandoned plans to celebrate the festival of Eid al-Adha because of the violence.
There is long-standing tension between the ethnic Rakhine people, who make up the majority of the state's population, and Muslims, many of whom are Rohingya and are stateless.
The Burmese authorities regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and correspondents say there is widespread public hostility to them.
In August Burma set up a commission to investigate the violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the west of the country. Authorities earlier rejected a UN-led inquiry.
