Mob attacks bus, kills 9 in Myanmar
A Myanmarese mob has attacked a passenger bus in the Rakhine state in the west of the country, killing at least nine people, an official says."We heard nine people were killed by ethnic Rakhine residents in Taunggote town this evening. We do not know the details yet," a government official told AFP on Sunday.
He added that many of the victims were likely to be Muslims who were visiting Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh, from central Myanmar.
A villager from the scene of the attack said a mob of ethnic Rakhines, who are mostly Buddhist, attacked the bus.
"More than a hundred people beat and killed those people. The residents even torched the bus," he said.
"There are not many people at the scene now, only dead bodies on the road. The senior town residents are trying to comfort the people," the man added.
Local residents said that a recent rape and murder of an ethnic Rakhine girl had created sectarian and ethnic tensions in the area.
Another man stated that the attackers killed people in an attempt to capture the supposed killers of the girl who they thought were among the passengers.
