Locked: Monks charge UN shelter to attack muslim refugees as Rohingya children being beheaded and civilians burned alive

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan authorities have arrested seven people, including at least one Buddhist monk, suspected of storming a United Nations safe house for Rohingya Muslim refugees last week.

A truck filled with aid for Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh veered off a road and fell into a ditch Thursday morning, killing at least nine aid workers, hours after another aid shipment in the refugees’ violence-wracked home state in Burma was attacked by a Buddhist mob.

Both shipments were from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Aid groups face different challenges on either side of the border: An influx of more than 420,000 refugees in less than a month in Bangladesh, and in Burma, government resistance and angry allegations from majority Buddhists that international organizations are favouring the long-persecuted Rohingya minority.

A Bangladeshi medical administrator, Aung Swi Prue, said six people died instantly in the truck crash near the border in southeastern Bandarban district. Three people died after reaching a hospital, and 10 others were injured and are receiving treatment.

ICRC spokeswoman Misada Saif said all of those killed were Bangladeshi workers hired to distribute food packages to 500 Rohingya families.

Saif said the truck belongs to the ICRC and Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and was operated by a supplier who has been working for the two agencies for last couple of weeks. She said agency officials are “very shocked and sad.”

“Our thoughts are with the families of the dead. They were there to help the people who desperately need help,” she said.

Rohingya children have been beheaded and civilians burned alive, according to witness testimony amid claims that Burma's military and paramilitary forces are committing "genocide" or a "pogrom" against the Muslim minority in the country’s western Rakhine state.

Civilians who escaped gave horrific accounts of violence and destruction by Burmese soldiers and other armed groups.

A man named as Abdul Rahman, 41, said he had survived a five-hour attack on Chut Pyin village.

He told Fortifiy Rights, a charity working in the area, that a group of Rohingya men had been rounded up and detained in a bamboo hut, which was then set on fire.

"My brother was killed, [Burmese soldiers] burned him with the group,” he said.

“We found [my other family members] in the fields. They had marks on their bodies from bullets and some had cuts.

"My two nephews, their heads were off. One was six years old and the other was nine years old. My sister-in-law was shot with a gun.”

Another man from the same village, named as Sultan Ahmed, 27, told the charity: “Some people were beheaded, and many were cut. We were in the house hiding when [armed residents from a neighbouring village] were beheading people.

"When we saw that, we just ran out the back of the house.”

Survivors from other villages in the region also described seeing people being beheaded or having their throats cut.

“We can’t stress enough the urgency of the situation,” said Matthew Smith, head of Fortify Rights.

The Myanmar authorities are failing to protect civilians and save lives. International pressure is critically needed.”

Satellite imagery released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) showed 700 buildings burned down in another Rohingya village, Chein Khar Li.

“This new satellite imagery shows the total destruction of a Muslim village, and prompts serious concerns that the level of devastation in northern Rakhine State may be far worse than originally thought,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for HRW.