YANGON: The city of Lashio in northern Myanmar was calm today, residents said, after violence between Buddhists and Muslims the previous evening that highlighted the tension between the two communities after deadly unrest over the past year.
A mosque, a Muslim religious school and a dozen shops owned by both Muslims and Buddhists were gutted by fire in the violence in Lashio, a city in Shan State about 190 km south of Muse on the border with China.
The renewed unrest underlines the problems faced by the reforming government of President Thein Sein as it struggles to open up the country while containing ethnic and religious tensions that festered under half a century of military rule.
In March at least 44 people, most of them Muslims, died in the central city of Meikhtila after a rampage by Buddhist mobs incensed by the killing of a monk by Muslims, shortly after a violent row between a Buddhist couple and Muslim shop owners.
No one was reported killed in Tuesday’s unrest in Lashio, which was sparked by a similar incident.
Aung Lwin, a Muslim man from a village near Lashio, said the trouble appeared to have begun after a quarrel between a Muslim man and a Buddhist woman who sold petrol. Several residents said the man doused the woman in fuel and set her on fire.
After police detained the man, Buddhists surrounded the police station and demanded he be handed over, Aung Lwin said.
When they refused, the crowd went on the rampage, attacking Myoma Mosque near Lashio market, residents said.
The authorities moved quickly to restore order late on Tuesday. (Reuters)