Two Burmese Settlers Raped and Killed

Buthidaung, Mar 16 : Two young female settlers from Burma proper were raped and killed by a group of miscreants in a model village in Buthidaung Township 80 miles north of the Arakan State capital, Sittwe, said a police official on the condition of anonymity.

The two young women, ages 23 and 19, were the daughters of 48-year-old U Maung Maung Than from Tha Rafi model village near Taung Bazar in northern Buthidaung Township.

According to the police report, the incident occurred at a vegetable garden being cultivated by the two young women two kilometers from their model village, when they visited the garden to sell vegetables to a local Muslim man.

On the evening of 1 March, a local Muslim man told the women he wished to buy vegetables from their garden, so the women went to the garden with him.

When they arrived at the vegetable garden, five men who were hiding inside the garden seized the women and restrained them. They later raped them one by one and then killed them, throwing their bodies into nearby Taung Bazar Creek.

Family members and local police found the bodies of the two women near the creek at midnight on the day of the incident and sent the bodies to Taung Bazar hospital for autopsy.

The police official said they know the identity of the perpetrators but have been unable to arrest anyone so far because they have fled across the Burmese border.

A local resident said the older woman was a mother of two children but the younger woman was single. The Tha Rafi model village was established by the Burmese military authority and settled with ethnic Burmese in order to increase the number of Buddhist communities in the region.