'6,700 Rohingya killed in Myanmar'

y Pyi Taw, Dec 14: Global humanitarian NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) announced on Thursday that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed after violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine state late August. Based on surveys of refugees in Bangladesh, the number is much higher than Myanmar’s official figure of 400, reports the BBC.

“In the most conservative estimations” at least 6,700 of those deaths have been caused by violence, including at least 730 children under the age of five, MSF said in a reports. MSF also known as Doctors Without Borders, said it was “the clearest indication yet of the widespread violence” by Myanmar authorities. “What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured,” MSF Medical Director Sidney Wong said. Among the dead children below the age of five, MSF said more than 59 per cent were reportedly shot, 15 per cent burnt to death, 7 per cent beaten to death and 2 per cent killed by landmine blasts.  (IANS)