AT LEAST 150 civilians from Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority may have been killed this week in an artillery and drone attack in the western state of Rakhine carried out, survivors say, by a major force in the resistance to military rule.

The Arakan Army, the military wing of the state’s Rakhine ethnic group, denied responsibility for the attack last Monday on Rohingya trying to flee fierce fighting in Maungdaw town by crossing the Naf River into Bangladesh.

A statement issued on Friday by medical charity Doctors Without Borders said that in the past week it has been treating increasing numbers of Rohingya people with violence-related injuries who managed to cross into Bangladesh.