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Police officers stand guard outside a mosque that a fire killed 13 children in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe

School blaze in Myanmar kills 13 students

Religious tensions are running high in the country, despite police assurances that the blaze was accidental.

A FIRE KILLED 13 students at a Muslim school in Myanmar’s main city early today, police said, raising tensions in the wake of sectarian clashes despite police assurances that the blaze was accidental.

The government called for calm and sent security forces to the scene after an angry crowd gathered demanding answers about the deadly fire in Yangon, which follows a wave of Buddhist-Muslim killings and arson in central Myanmar.

“Thirteen people, mostly children, were killed during a fire at a Muslim religious school in downtown Yangon,” a police officer at the scene told AFP. “We assume that it was due to an electrical short circuit.”

The doors to the building – which housed a mosque and a religious school where dozens of children were staying in a dormitory – were apparently locked, according to government spokesman Ye Htut, preventing the students from escaping until emergency services arrived.

Police promised to establish a committee – including Muslim leaders – to look into the cause, while the government urged people to avoid spreading rumours.

“Please don’t believe some news on the Internet portraying this case as a religious conflict,” Ye Htut posted on his Facebook page.

Safety standards

Safety standards are generally poor in impoverished Myanmar, which is emerging from decades of military rule.

Some Muslim leaders, however, voiced suspicions that the fire was started deliberately because students and teachers said they had slipped on an oily liquid on the ground floor while escaping.

“The oil smelled like petrol or diesel,” said Shine Win, a Muslim leader, urging the government to “reveal the truth”.

One student who escaped told AFP that his legs and clothes were dirty with the oily liquid.

“I slipped when I stepped on something like oil and almost fell down. As the fire was so big at that time, I didn’t recognise what it was,” he said.

Scorch marks scarred the outside of the building, according to an AFP reporter at the scene, as three military trucks carrying soldiers arrived to keep the peace.

Communal tensions are running high in the former army-ruled country after at least 43 people died last month in a wave of sectarian violence that saw mosques and homes burned down in several towns in central Myanmar.

The government has imposed emergency rule and curfews in some areas.

Yangon has been tense but mostly peaceful following the clashes, which were apparently triggered by an argument in a gold shop in the town of Meiktila that triggered a riot that later spread.

The conflict poses a major challenge for President Thein Sein, who has won international praise for his reform efforts since taking office two years ago.

The situation has calmed in recent days after the former general on Thursday vowed a tough response over the violence, which he blamed on “political opportunists and religious extremists”.

Sectarian strife involving Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine last year left at least 180 people dead.

- © AFP, 2013

Read: Myanmar prepares for new era of uncensored daily newspapers >

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    Mute Oliver Cleary
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    Mar 12th 2024, 10:54 AM

    All the “Hamas” bots seem to be missing when it comes to denouncing Islamists when it comes to kidnapping of Women and Children. Double standards from the left and Islamic ideologies.

    Hope international attention leads to the children and women being found. Thanks Journal for highlighting it.

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    Mute ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere
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    Mar 12th 2024, 11:01 AM

    @Oliver Cleary: I don’t think you’ll find anyone that supports such actions.

    Nice try at deflection, though.

    No, care to condemn Israel’s crimes against humanity?
    Crimes it has been committing since it first stole the homeland of the Palestinian.

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    Mute Oliver Cleary
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    Mar 12th 2024, 11:03 AM

    @ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: I’ll engage when you use your real name. Stop hiding behind a pseudonym. You do not merit honest discussion because you are in essence dishonest

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    Mar 12th 2024, 11:46 AM

    @Oliver Cleary: What you mean you find yourself unable to condemn Israel’s crimes against humanity.

    Why does any pseudonym prevent you from doing that?

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    Mute Etcher
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    Mar 12th 2024, 12:59 PM

    @ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: “since it first stole the homeland of the Palestinian” showed your cards there, you obviously have zero understanding of the conflict

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    Mar 12th 2024, 3:06 PM

    @Etcher: @Etcher: What do I not understand?

    If people claiming to be descendants of Irish who left these shores long ago illegally moved back here, established terrorist groups, attacked us, drove us out of our homes, off our lands and out of our towns and villages, attacked and overthew our government and established their own state here, then what would be different about what the colonial Israeli settler has done to the Palestinian?

    And what do you think we would do about it?

    And wouldn’t we be right?

    Now would you like to tell us your understanding?

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    Mute Sun Rise
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    Mar 12th 2024, 10:35 AM

    It is not cool enough to be seen to be concerned about what happens in Nigeria.

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    Mute F Fitzgerald
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    Mar 12th 2024, 12:43 PM

    @Sun Rise: Since when? It’s a scandal that they can’t protect their schoolchildren. Similar happened in Italy years ago, it was rife. All for money mostly.

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    Mute Etcher
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    Mar 12th 2024, 12:58 PM

    @Sun Rise: What a dump of a country

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    Mar 12th 2024, 7:27 PM

    @Etcher: There aren’t that many books available here that give an insight into life in Nigeria, or West Africa even.

    But an author that does have a few books on the shelves is Oyinkan Braithwaite, and her novel My Sister, the Serial Killer is worth the read.

    But this is based in a city (Lagos perhaps, I can’t remember), and does not touch on rural Nigerian life, much less the life of those in the northern parts that are subject to much of this terrorism.

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    Mute Brian Hunt
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    Mar 12th 2024, 11:47 AM

    You have to admire these brave Jihadists on their dangerous military operations. One of the school children might throw their schoolbag at them, causing scratches!

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    Mar 12th 2024, 5:14 PM

    @Brian Hunt: As brave as the Israelis, would you say?

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    Mute Tilal Moore
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    Mar 12th 2024, 1:19 PM

    Horrendous for these children & their families. Hope they are reunited soon & not abused or trafficked, like the 14 year who went missing from Tulsa

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