Buddhist-Muslim Tensions Spread as Detainees Die in Indonesia
Simmering religious and ethnic violence in Myanmar spread beyond the Southeast Asian country’s borders on Friday when a brawl broke out at an immigration center in Indonesia between Muslim and Buddhist detainees, leaving eight dead and 15 wounded, officials said.
A group of 117 Rohingya refugees and 11 illegal fishermen from Myanmar were being held together in the same area of a government detention center in Belawan, a port city in North Sumatra Province, when fighting erupted in the morning, said Herianto, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Department of Immigration in Jakarta.
“There were eight fishermen killed; they are the Buddhists,” Mr. Herianto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, said. “The injured detainees were Rohingya,” a Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar.
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