Arakan Buddhists in Bangladesh ‘Fleeing Persecution’

4 June 2013

Hundreds of Buddhists in Burma’s neighbor Bangladesh have fled to their home country in recent months saying they had suffered religious persecution, Mizzima reported on Tuesday. They have taken shelter in two townships in northern Arakan State. One displaced monk criticized the international response when the Buddhists were displaced by largely anti-Muslim violence in the state last year. “At first the WFP [UN World Food Programme] provided rice, but they stopped delivering it because they said these people were not real refugees,” he told Mizzima, adding that altogether 1,067 people had been displaced.