Sectarian violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state has claimed the life of a 94-year-old Muslim woman. Source: AAP
TERRIFIED women and children are hiding in forests and security forces are patrolling tense villages in western Myanmar, residents say, after sectarian clashes which left five Muslims dead.
President Thein Sein was expected to visit the violence-racked area as part of his first official visit to Rakhine state since a wave of religious bloodshed erupted there last year.
Sectarian bloodshed has overshadowed internationally praised political reforms and piled pressure on the former junta general, who took power in 2011.
The US said it was "deeply concerned" about the latest unrest and urged authorities to respond "decisively", in a statement issued by its embassy in Yangon.
Around 800 Buddhist rioters torched homes and attacked local Muslims in a village in the area of Thandwe on Tuesday, according to the authorities.
"The death toll rose to five - four men and a woman," a Rakhine police official who did not want to be named told AFP on Wednesday, adding that the victims were all killed during Tuesday's violence.
A 94-year-old Muslim woman, who suffered stab wounds, was among the dead.
Four Rakhine Buddhists were injured in clashes and a fifth was missing, while 59 houses and a mosque have been torched since tensions flared on Saturday, police said.
Around 250 people have been killed and more than 140,000 left homeless in several outbreaks of inter-religious violence around the country since June 2012, mostly in Rakhine.
A local Muslim official told AFP that police had fired warning shots but could not control the mob.
"We are disappointed that we have a government that is unable to provide security for us," the official, Myint Aung, told AFP.
"We are living in fear. Many people, including women and children, are hiding in the forest nearby," he said.
Thein Sein held meetings with members of Buddhist and Rohingya Muslim communities during his two-day tour.
In a message to a multi-faith conference, which was carried in state media on Wednesday, Thein Sein lamented "instigations fuelling minor crimes into conflicts between the two communities and two religions".
"Such instability based on religion and race harms and delays the state reforms and tarnishes the national image internationally," he warned.
Four major Myanmar Muslim organisations released an open letter to Thein Sein late Tuesday calling on the government to take urgent law-enforcement action.
"The concerns of minority Muslims around the country have reached peak levels. They feel they have no security," the letter said.
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