Hundreds of hard-line Buddhists, including monks, have protested against a plan by Myanmar's government for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to return to the country.

More than 580,000 people from the minority Muslim community and about 30,000 non-Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since August following attacks by Myanmar's military and Buddhist mobs.

Rohingya refugees say some have been killed and raped and their villages set on fire in Rakhine state, with the UN describing their treatment as a "textbook example" of ethnic cleansing.

Image: Hundreds of people took part in the demonstration in Sittwe

The violence followed attacks by Muslim insurgents on troops in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The country's leader Aung San Suu Kyi said her government was holding talks with Bangladesh about the return of Rohingya.


They would need to prove they were Myanmar residents, but few are thought to have the relevant documents.

Special report: The Rohingya crsis

The Buddhist protest took place in the state capital, Sittwe, where many Rohingya lived before they were forced to flee the violence, and activists at the march urged the government not to repatriate them.

Aung Htay, an organiser of the demonstration, said: "If these people don't have the right to be citizens... the government's plan for a conflict-free zone will never be implemented."

Flow of human misery at Rohingya refugee camp

Officials say the Rohingya were unlikely to be able to reclaim their land, and may discover their crops have been harvested and sold by the government.

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic group and insists they are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh living illegally, even though many families have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Rohingya are excluded from the official 135 ethnic groups in the country and denied citizenship.