Kill by heavy riots in Myanmar

yangon - The Myanmar police have shot seven people in riots in the troubled province of Rakhine. Twelve other people were injured, the authorities say.

A crowd gathered in the historic city of Mrauk U on Tuesday evening to commemorate the end of the Kingdom of Arakan in 1784. Some 4000 people later gathered at a government building and came to riots. Police vehicles would also have been attacked.

The demonstrators were angry because of an attempt by the authorities to ban the commemoration, reported news site The Irrawaddy. A provincial government official told Reuters that the situation escalated when people tried to take weapons from the police officers.

It has been restless in Rakhine for some time. Many hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh from the province.