Bangkok: New evidence shows that Rohingya Muslim villages continue to be torched in Myanmar's strife-torn Rakhine state, despite denials by the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Eyewitnesses, photographs and multiple reports also show that Myanmar security forces continue to plant internationally-banned anti-personnel mines that are blowing up Rohingya people fleeing to Bangladesh.
Ms Suu Kyi claimed in a speech on Tuesday that her country's security forces ended what she called "clearance operations" in the state on September 5.
The Myanmar army denies it is laying new land mines along the border.
Amnesty International says videos taken as recently as Friday show large plumes of smoke rising from villages, one of which was already deserted. New satellite imagery also shows smoke over burnt-out structures.
Tirana Hasan, Amnesty's director of crisis response, said evidence shows there has been no let-up in the campaign of violence that the UN describes as ethnic cleansing.
"Rohingya homes and villages continue to burn, before, during and after their inhabitants take flight in terror," she said.
"Not satisfied with simply forcing Rohingya from their homes, authorities seem intent on ensuring they have no homes to return to."
Amnesty quoted local source in Rakhine saying the fires were started by members of Myanmar's security forces and Buddhist vigilante mobs.
Myanmar's continuing laying of landmines has sparked growing international condemnation.
"There can be no justification for using such indiscriminate weapons which are harming and killing civilians fleeing their homes," said Human Rights Watch's Steve Goose who heads the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has appealed for international help at the United Nations to pressure Myanmar to stop laying the mines, saying she was "horrified to see it".
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Raad al-Hussein also said he was appalled by reports that Myanmar authorities were laying mines.
Anti-landmine campaigners say Myanmar, one of only a few countries that refused to sign the international Mine Ban Treaty, has no mine clearance program, meaning the deadly weaponsl remain in the ground, endangering hundreds of thousands of Rohingya.
Ms Suu Kyi said last week her country was ready to accept back "verified" refugees from overcrowded camps in Bangladesh.
But more than 1 million Rohingya living in Rakhine have been denied citizenship and many of those who have fled the state have no identification documents.
Mr Goose called on Myanmar's security forces to mark and clear the minefields to prevent more casualties.
Scores of Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh suffering landmine injuries and have told how others had been killed attempting to cross the border.
According to information collected by Landmine Monitor, the ICBL's research wing, local researchers interviewing and assisting refugees as they crossed into Bangladesh saw Myanmar soldiers unpack crates of mines.
Amnesty International says it has obtained photographs showing newly laid anti-personnel mines in the ground at the border that could have been manufactured by either Myanmar or China.
Reuters has also reported accounts of the laying of mines.
Myanmar's military admitted in 2016 that it had planted landmines during the country's internal conflicts in contravention of the international ban.
The influx of Rohingya from Rakhine is the largest movement of civilians in Asia since the 1970s.
Michael Gloeckle from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who is in Bangladesh, said the situation in mega-refugee camps at the border was "shaping up to the a catastrophe on the scale of Iraq".
"While the recent humanitarian operations around Mosul in Iraq or the Ebola outbreak in Africa a couple of years ago were certainly difficult, I think this crisis has the potential to turn into a real humanitarian catastrophe unless the world steps up the support dramatically," Mr Gloeckle said.
"At this stage of the emergency and with limited resources available, there is no way we can provide shelter to all of them," he said.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Saturday that as the number of refugees fleeing Myanmar edges towards half a million, UN workers are stepping up delivery of life-saving aid, including providing plastic sheeting, kitchen equipment, sleeping mats, solar lamps and other essential relief items.
But aid agencies report widespread starvation and disease in the camps as refugees continue to arrive.
