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Men wear masks to protect themselves from H1N1 in Yangon, Myanmar, July 24, 2017. (Photo by Reuters) Myanmar has called for calm after 13 people were confirmed to have contracted H1N1 influenza and a boy had died with flu-like symptoms, raising fears of a new outbreak of a virus also known as swine flu. Three cases of H1N1 had been confirmed in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, on Friday, the Ministry of Health and Sport said in a statement on Monday after news of the infections had already spread. The ministry said another 10 people in Matupi - in the remote northwestern state of Chin that borders India - had caught the virus this month. A 6-year-old boy also died in Matupi with severe respiratory problems suspected to have been caused by H1N1, Win Lwin, the director of the Yangon regional health department, told reporters. "There is no need to panic because it usually happens every year," the ministry said, adding that those with symptoms should go to government cli...

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Friday sent off a ship carrying tonnes of food and emergency supplies to Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims, saying their suffering would not be ignored. Najib has been an outspoken critic of the treatment of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority, calling on the government to stop attacks. The Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied the accusations, saying many reports of violence against Rohingya are fabricated. It insists strife in Rakhine State, where many Rohingya live, is an internal matter. "This is a historic moment ... a noble effort that shows that all the pain and suffering of Rohingya in Myanmar will not go ignored," Najib said in a speech at a port near the capital of mostly Muslim Malaysia. "We hear their pain, those who have been raped, murdered and burned alive." Myanmar security forces launched a crackdown in the north of Rakhine State, on the b...

Myanmar's security forces have committed mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya Muslims and burned their villages since October in a campaign that probably amounts to crimes against humanity and possibly "ethnic cleansing", the U.N. human rights office said on Friday. Witnesses testified to "the killing of babies, toddlers, children, women and elderly; opening fire at people fleeing; burning of entire villages; massive detention; massive and systematic rape and sexual violence; deliberate destruction of food and sources of food", the report said. One woman told U.N. investigators how her eight-month baby boy had had his throat slit. Another was raped by soldiers and saw her five-year-old daughter killed as she tried to stop them. “The devastating cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein said in a statement. Around 66,000 people have fled from the Musl...