Close to 140,000 people have been displaced in Myanmar since September as a result of armed conflicts in several western and northeastern parts of the country, the United Nations says.
Most of the displaced are members of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state, who have been affected by the campaign of reprisals launched by the military following the armed assault against three border police checkposts on October 9.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 74,000 of the displaced persons are in refugee camps in Bangladesh while another 20,000 have been internally displaced within Rakhine.
Another 36,000 have had to leave their homes in the states of Shan and Kachin due to fresh clashes between the Myanmar army and a coalition of ethnic guerrilla groups in northeastern Myanmar.
These figures raise the total number of displaced people throughout the country as a result of armed conflicts and sectarian violence to 260,000, according to the latest estimate by OCHA.
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