The United Nations said the number of people displaced by ethnic and sectarian unrest in Myanmar last week has risen to 28,000.
U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar Ashok Nigam said the figure is likely to rise because some people who fled affected areas along the coast by boat have yet to be counted.
Nigam said Monday that 27,300 people -- the vast majority of those confirmed displaced -- are Muslim, according to The Associated Press.
Tensions have simmered in the region since clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims first broke out in June.
A new wave of skirmishes erupted Oct. 14, but officials say the area has been calm since Saturday.
At least 88 people have been killed in sectarian bloodshed in Myanmar this month, the authorities said Monday.
Hundreds more homes were burned down over the weekend as security forces struggled to quell clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine that have seen whole neighborhoods razed.
Four more deaths were reported, although they were believed to be from earlier clashes.
“Altogether 49 men and 39 women have been killed,” a government official told AFP, bringing the total death toll since June to about 180. Rights groups fear the actual number killed could be much higher.
“About 300 houses were burnt down in Pauktaw town on Sunday but there were no casualties in that incident,” said the official, who did not want to be named.
Decades-old animosity between Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims exploded in June after the apparent rape and murder of an ethnic Rakhine woman sparked a series of vicious revenge attacks.
Myanmar’s 800,000 stateless Rohingya are viewed by the United Nations as among the most persecuted minorities on the planet.
Seen by the Myanmar government and many Burmese as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, they face tight restrictions on their movements and limited access to employment, education and public services.
New York-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday released satellite images showing what it described as “extensive destruction” in a mainly Rohingya Muslim area of Kyaukpyu -- the site of a major pipeline taking gas to China.
Virtually all structures appear to have been wiped from the landscape.
Other Muslims in Rakhine have also been swept up in the latest violence, including the Kaman, one of Myanmar’s officially recognized ethnic groups.
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