“There are 31 people, including the women and children, who fled from the Chittagong Hill area. Now they are staying at the Sarsana Temple,” said U Maung Aye Thein a local resident who was helping them.

There are nine men, 11 women and 11 children in the group. They are from Ya-Mat-Gyi Village, Tan Sake Township, in the Yoar Taw (Bandarban in Bangladeshi) district of Bangladesh. They crossed the border to Platwa Township in Chin State, Burma before going to Kyauktaw Township.

U Maung Aye Thein said: “They said it was difficult for them to earn a living because Muslim people were giving them trouble there and their businesses were failing. As they were afraid of persecution from Muslims they fled from there.”

The authorities from Kyauktaw Township came to Sarsana Temple to register how many people were staying there.

This is the first group to come over this dry season; over 1,000 asylum seekers from Bangladesh have entered in previous years.

Where they were living in the Chittagong Hill area most of the people are Buddhist and Bengali people frequently attack them.

On 16th December about 500 migrants attacked three ethnic Chakma (Thet in Burmese) Buddhist villages in the Rangamati District of the Chittagong Hill area. A monastery and about 60 homes were burned down.

Translated by Aung Myat Soe English version written by Mark Inkey for BNI