OIC to meet on April 14 to Halt Deadly Violence Against Myanmar Muslims, "ready to take all necessary measures and actions to deal with it".

OIC to meet on April 14 to Halt Deadly Violence Against Myanmar Muslims, "ready to take all necessary measures and actions to deal with it".(IW).

The head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation said on Saturday that ministers from OIC states will meet on April 14 in Saudi Arabia to discuss deadly violence against Muslims in Myanmar.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said in a statement that a contact committee of OIC foreign ministers would gather in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

State media in Myanmar reported on Saturday that the death toll from communal violence in the center of the country over the past 10 days has risen to 43 with more than 1,300 homes and other buildings destroyed.

An OIC statement said Ihsanoglu addressed a contact group meeting on violence against Myanmar Muslims known as Rohingya on Saturday and said the organization was "ready to take all necessary measures and actions to deal with it".

Ihsanoglu also pressed the government of Myanmar to "put an end to the Buddhist extremists and hate campaigns, as well as ethnic cleansing that they had launched against Muslims in the country".

On Friday, Myanmar strongly rejected comments by the UN's special rapporteur on Myanmar human rights, Tomas Ojea Quintana, the previous day that he had "received reports of state involvement in some of the acts of violence".

Buddhist mobs have marauded through several towns in central Myanmar since religious violence erupted on March 20, prompting the government to impose emergency rule and curfews in some areas.

It is the worst sectarian strife since violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine last year left at least 180 people dead and more than 110,000 displaced.

Myanmar's Muslims -- largely of Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi descent -- account for an estimated four percent of the population of roughly 60 million.Hmmmm......a pity they're silent when Christians are being murdered all over the middle East.

20 dead in Buddhist-Muslim clashes in Myanmar, 1,200 Muslim families flee their homes.

20 dead in Buddhist-Muslim clashes in Myanmar, 1,200 Muslim families flee their homes.(TOI).MEIKHTILA, Myanmar (AP) — Burning fires from two days of Buddhist-Muslim violence that killed at least 20 people smoldered across a central Myanmar town Friday as residents cowered indoors amid growing fears the country’s latest bout of sectarian bloodshed could spread.

The government’s struggle to contain the unrest in Meikhtila is proving another major challenge for President Thein Sein’s reformist administration as it attempts to chart a path to democracy after nearly half a century of military rule that once crushed all dissent.

The scenes in Meikhtila, where homes and at least five mosques have been torched by angry mobs, were ominously reminiscent of the sectarian violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya that shook western Rakhine state last year, killing hundreds of people and driving more than 100,000 from their homes.

The clashes in Meikhtila — which was tense but calm Friday — are the first reported in central Myanmar since then.

Troubles began Wednesday after an argument broke out between a Muslim gold shop owner and his Buddhist customers. A Buddhist monk was among the first killed, inflaming tensions that led a Buddhist mob to rampage through a Muslim neighborhood.

Violence continued Thursday, and by Friday, Win Htein, a local lawmaker from the opposition National League for Democracy, said he had counted at least 20 bodies. He said 1,200 Muslim families — at least 6,000 people — have fled their homes and taken refuge at a stadium and a police station.

On Friday, police seized knives, swords, hammers and sticks from young men in the streets and detained scores of looters. Fires set to Muslim homes continued to burn, but angry Buddhist residents and monks prevented authorities from putting out the blazes.

It was difficult to determine the extent of destruction in the town because residents were too afraid to walk the streets and were sheltering in monasteries or other locations away from the violence.

“We don’t feel safe and we have now moved inside a monastery,” said Sein Shwe, a shop owner. “The situation is unpredictable and dangerous.”

Some monks accosted and threatened journalists trying to cover the unrest, at one point trying to drag a group of several out of a van. One monk, whose faced was covered, shoved a foot-long dagger at the neck of an Associated Press photographer and demanded his camera. The photographer defused the situation by handing over his camera’s memory card.The group of nine journalists took refuge in a monastery and stayed there until a police unit was able to escort them to safety.

The UN secretary-general’s special adviser to Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, issued a statement expressing “deep sorrow at the tragic loss of lives and destruction.”

He said religious and community leaders to must “publicly call on their followers to abjure violence, respect the law and promote peace.”

The US ambassador to Myanmar, Derek Mitchell, also said he was “deeply concerned about reports of violence and widespread property damage in Meikhtila.” Meikhtila is about 550 kilometers (340 miles) north of the main city of Yangon with a population of about 100,000 people, of which about a third are Muslims, Win Htein said. He said before this week’s violence, the community had 17 mosques.Read the full story here.