Probe Rakhine atrocities: UN

UN human rights experts have called on Myanmar to investigate allegations that security forces have killed unarmed civilians, burned villages and made arbitrary arrests in a Muslim-majority region where a crackdown has followed attacks on border police.

Aid agencies say up to 15,000 people, believed to be mostly Rohingya Muslims, have been displaced since armed men launched coordinated attacks on three posts along the northwestern border with Bangladesh on Oct 9.

The government, which is led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has characterised the response of security forces as a carefully targeted sweep of northern Rakhine State's Maungdaw Township in search of the perpetrators.

Officials say security forces have killed 30 "attackers" and detained 53 suspects while searching for 400 suspected Rohingya militants, who seized dozens of weapons from border police.

The UN envoy on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said she had received "repeated allegations of arbitrary arrests as well as extrajudicial killings occurring within the context of the security operations conducted by the authorities in search of the alleged attackers."

"What troubles me most is the lack of access for a proper assessment of the true picture of the situation there at the present moment," Lee said in a statement from Geneva on Monday.

Aid operation are also halted for the crackdown, he said.

Hundreds of Rohingya villagers are facing a second night hiding in rice fields without shelter, after the army on Sunday forcibly removed them from a village in a crackdown following attacks on border security forces.

Four Rohingya sources contacted by Reuters by telephone, said border guard officers went to Kyee Kan Pyin village on Sunday and ordered about 2,000 villagers to abandon it, giving them just enough time to collect basic household items.

"I was kicked out from my house yesterday afternoon, now I live in a paddy field outside of my village with some 200 people including my family - I became homeless," said a Rohingya man from Kyee Kan Pyin village.