YANGON: Three bombs exploded early on Saturday in the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, a cauldron of ethnic tensions roiled by insurgencies and a military crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya, injuring one police officer.

The three blasts at separate locations around Sittwe included one at the home of a high-ranking official, police said.

Besides the bloody campaign against the Rohingya in the state’s north, Rakhine has been struggling with a decade-long rebellion fought by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist insurgents, though bombings in the state capital are rare.

“Three bombs exploded and three other unexploded bombs were found. A police officer was injured but not seriously,” a senior officer said. The blasts hit at around 4am, the officer said.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2018