More than 3,000 Buddhists gathered for a ceremony in Bandarban, a town in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tract, to pray for peace and ward off the threat of sectarian violence spreading from neighboring Arakan State, according to the Narinjara news agency. The ceremony was attended by people from several predominantly Buddhist ethnic communities, including the Marama, Rakhine, Chakma, Mro, Barawa and Mru. There are three districts in the Chittagong Hill Tract area—Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachhari—where Buddhist communities are in the majority.