DHAKA: A climate of fear in Myanmar’s Rakhine state is pushing stateless Rohingya Muslims to flee in ‘unprecedented’ numbers, with almost 10,000 people taking to boats in the region in just two weeks.

Activists said Monday, reports The Straits Times.

A surge in boats leaving from northern Rakhine, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya live in isolated communities, has seen around 900 people a day making the perilous journey by sea, according to the Arakan Project, a Rohingya rights group.

‘This is very unprecedented, it’s such a massive number,’ director Chris Lewa told the media.

The end of the rainy season usually sees a spike in departures, but arrests and beatings in northern Rakhine combined with worries that authorities were planning to exclude Rohingya from citizenship had lead to this huge rise, Lewa said.

BDST: 1953 HRS, OCT 27, 2014