Rohingya militants, whose August 25 raids in Burma's Rakhine State sparked an army crackdown that has seen nearly 300,000 of the Muslim minority flee to Bangladesh, on Sunday declared an immediate unilateral one-month ceasefire.

Bedraggled and exhausted Rohingya refugees have arrived in huge numbers in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area for over two weeks, while tens of thousands more are believed to be on the move inside Rakhine, many in desperate conditions after more than a fortnight without shelter, food and water.

A further 27,000 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists as well as Hindus have also been displaced by violence that has unfurled across the northern part of the state.