REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, YANGON - A Buddhist mob rampaged through a town in an isolated corner of Myanmar, hacking Muslim women and children with knives, a villager and a rights group reported Thursday, saying there could be more than a dozen deaths. A government official said the situation was tense, but denied any deaths.

Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million people, has been grappling with sectarian violence for nearly two years. More than 240 people have been killed and another 140,000, mostly Muslims, forced to flee their homes.

Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, an advocacy group that has been documenting abuses against members of the Rohinyga Muslim minority for more than a decade, said the violence occurred Tuesday in northern Rakhine state. She said tensions have been building in the region since last month, when monks from a Buddhist extremist movement known as 969 toured the area and gave sermons by loudspeaker advocating the expulsion of all Rohinygya.

A resident who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals said an initial flare-up followed the discovery of three bodies in a ditch near Du Char Yar Tan village by several firewood collectors. Believing they were among a group of eight Rohingya who went missing after being detained by authorities days earlier, they alerted friends and neighbors who returned with their cellphones to take pictures, said the man, a volunteer English teacher.

That night, five police went to the village to confiscate the phones and check family lists, but the crowd turned on the officers, beating and chasing them off, he said. The police returned at 2 a.m., saying one of their men had gone missing, he said. That triggered a security crackdown.

Soldiers and police surrounded the village, breaking down doors and looting livestock and other valuables, the English teacher said. Almost all the men fled, leaving the women, children and elderly behind, he said.

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