The predominantly Buddhist country’s treatment of the Rohingya has long been a point of contention and attacks on the Muslim minority have been reported for months prior to the recent intensification.

Ethnic Rohingya Muslims fleeing Burmese security forces in Burma’s Rakhine State have described killings, shelling, rapes and arson in their villages that have all the hallmarks of a campaign of “ethnic cleansing,” according to Human Rights Watch.

The UN’s top human rights official has described Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingyas as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”,