In Thandwe, Communal Trust Shattered in Aftermath of Violence
Print This Post Thandwe, Thapyu Kyain, Arakan State, Rakhine
State, Myanmar, Burma, human rights, communal violence,
religious conflict, Muslim, Buddhist  A group of Kaman Muslim
women taking shelter in a village not far from their home
village of Thapyu Kyain. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy)
THANDWE TOWNSHIP, Arakan State — Sitting on the floor of a
Buddhist monastery, 85-year-old Ma Hla, an ethnic Arakanese
Buddhist, is homeless, although she doesn’t realize it yet.  Her
son says he did not want to worry his aging mother by explaining
that her house was burned to the ground last week during four
days of communal violence in villages near the town of Thandwe
in west Burma’s Arakan State. In Thapyu Kyain, the hardest-hit
village, 52 homes were torched. Forty-one of them belonged to
Muslims, says a local abbot, but Buddhists were also victims.
“I have six children—three men and three women,” Ma Hla says. “I
was born here, and I have eight