Local authorities and community leaders have completed a headcount of those living in the Muslim quarter of the Arakan State capital Sittwe, finding little to indicate, as was claimed, that the neighborhood’s population had swelled in recent years.
Often described as the city’s “Muslim ghetto,” the Aung Mingalar quarter is the last majority-Muslim enclave in Sittwe, with most of the capital’s other Muslims having fled inter-communal violence in 2012 that largely pitted the state’s Muslim Rohingya minority against Arakanese Buddhists.
Complainants last week argued that Aung Mingalar’s official population of just over 4,000 people was not reflective of the reality on the ground, where they claimed a government health care program being run inside the quarter had documented treatment of more than 10,000 people last year. (Courtesy of irrawaddy.com)
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