![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/RajithaSenaratneR.jpg\")
Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne condemned the attack on Rohingya refugees (AFP Photo\/ISHARA S. KODIKARA)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n“As a Buddhist I am ashamed at what happened,” Senaratne told reporters.<\/p>\n
“Mothers carrying very young children were forced out of their safe house which was attacked by a mob led by a handful of monks,” he said.<\/p>\n
The mob broke down the gates of the multi-storied building near the capital Colombo, smashing windows and furniture as frightened refugees huddled together upstairs.<\/p>\n
There were no reports of casualties among the refugees, who were later taken to another location, but two police officers were wounded and admitted to hospital.<\/p>\n
Senaratne said police had been ordered to take disciplinary action against officers found to have failed to control the mob.<\/p>\n
“This is not what the Buddha taught. We have to show compassion to these refugees. These monks who carried out the attacks are actually not monks, but animals,” he said.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka’s extremist Buddhist monks have close links with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar. Both have been accused of orchestrating violence against minority Muslims in the two countries.<\/p>\n
One of the monks who stormed the building posted a video on Facebook filmed by his radical group Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa (Sinhalese National Force) as he urged others to join him and smash the premises.<\/p>\n
“These are Rohingya terrorists who killed Buddhist monks in Myanmar,” the monk said in his live commentary, pointing to Rohingya mothers with small children in their arms.<\/p>\n
The 31 Rohingya refugees were rescued by the Sri Lankan navy five months ago after they were found drifting in a boat off the island’s northern coast<\/p>\n
They had been living in India for several years before leaving a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu state.<\/p>\n
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expressed alarm over Tuesday’s attack and urged Sri Lankans to show empathy for civilians fleeing persecution and violence.<\/p>\n
Almost half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since August 25.<\/p>\n
They have been the target of decades of state-backed persecution and discrimination in the mainly Buddhist country, where many view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Sri Lankan government Wednesday slammed a group of radical Buddhist monks who attacked Rohingya refugees on the island as “animals”, pledging action against police who failed to protect them. Rajitha Senaratne, a cabinet spokesman, said the government condemned Tuesday’s storming of a UN safe house where 31 Rohingya refugees, including 16 children and seven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}