SUU KYI VISITS NORTHERN RAKHINE, MEETS ROHINGYA MUSLIMS

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited conflict-battered northern Rakhine State for the first time Thursday, reportedly meeting Rohingya Muslims who have faced an army crackdown that has seen hundreds of thousands of the minority flee.

Some 600,000 of the stateless minority have fled to Bangladesh since late August carrying accounts of murder, rape and arson at the hands of Myanmar's powerful army, after militant raids sparked a ferocious military retaliation. Suu Kyi left via state capital Sittwe as evening fell on Thursday after a visit that also took in Maungdaw and Buthidaung in northern Rakhine. It was her first trip in office to the region, which has seen some of the worst communal violence that has cut through the western state since 2012, severely damaging Myanmar's global reputation.

"The Lady" - as she in known - did meet with the Rohingya community in Maungdaw town, according to local media, a first for a leader keen to convince observers inside the country and abroad that the crisis has abated and reconstruction of Rakhine can begin. But it was not clear if Suu Kyi visited some of the hundreds of Rohingya villages torched by the army - allegedly aided by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist locals.