By Joshua Carroll
YANGON, Myanmar
Buddhist mobs have damaged a mosque and Muslim shops in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city.
Police fired shots to disperse crowds as Buddhists and Muslims faced off in the streets on Wednesday.
The violence flared after a rumor was spread on social media that a Muslim had raped a Buddhist woman.
Ashin Wirathu, a notorious Buddhist monk based in Mandalay, had posted the alleged rape on his Facebook page.
Wirathu, who has described himself as Myanmar’s “Bin Laden”, has been accused of stoking anti-Muslim tensions, and is a key leader of a group called 969.
The group’s followers claim Myanmar is under threat from Islamic expansion, and have called for a boycott of Muslim-owned businesses.
As tensions rose in Mandalay on Tuesday evening, a mob of Buddhists reportedly formed in a Muslim area of town and began attacking shops and burning vehicles.
Local media reported that three people were injured in the disturbances and there are unconfirmed reports that a Muslim man was shot.
Myanmar has been blighted by repeated eruptions of sectarian violence since June 2012. Around 280 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced, mostly Muslims.
The initial riots flared in western Rakhine state, where a stateless Muslim minority known as the Rohingya made up most of the victims. But clashes have since spread across the country.
The violence has tarnished the image of Myanmar’s new reformist government, which took power in 2011 following five decades of military rule.
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