Myanmar Muslim face uncertain future after attacks
By | Associated Press – Wed, May 1, 2013
Buddhist Mobs Set Fire to Myanmar Villages
OKKAN, Myanmar
(AP) — They slept terrified in the fields, watching their homes burn
through the night. And when they returned on Wednesday, nothing was left
but smoldering ash and debris.
One day after hundreds of Buddhists armed with bricks stormed a clutch of Muslim villages in the closest explosion of sectarian violence yet to Myanmar's main city, Yangon,
newly displaced Muslims combed through the wasteland of their wrecked
lives. Unable to go home, they faced an uncertain future — too fearful
of more attacks even to leave.
"We ran into the fields and didn't carry anything with us," Hla Myint, a 47-year-old father of eight, said after the mobs overran his village.
Tears welling in his eyes, he added, "Now, we have nothing left."
Thet Lwin, a deputy commissioner of police
for the region, put the casualty toll from Tuesday's assaults at one
dead and nine injured. He said police have detained 18 attackers who
destroyed 157 homes and shops and at least two mosques in the town of Okkan, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Yangon, and three outlying villages.
