Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said the number of people fleeing their homes surrounding the volcano had tripled since Friday amid growing alarm that Mount Agung could erupt at any moment.

“The evacuation process is ongoing and we expect the number of evacuees to continue to rise,” the agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP.

The volcano, located about 75 kilometres (50 miles) from the tourist hub of Kuta, has been rumbling since August.

Officials announced the highest possible alert level on late Friday following the increasing volcanic activities and urged people stay at least nine kilometres away from the crater.

“I am actually very worried to leave, I left my cows and pigs at home because we were ordered to vacate our village immediately,” villager Nyoman Asih who evacuated with her entire family told AFP.

A general view shows Mount Agung from Karangasem on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on September 23, 2017.  // AFP PHOTO

The international airport in Bali’s capital, Denpasar, was anticipating possibilities of airport closure but no flight schedules had been affected as of Sunday.

The airport has prepared buses and trains to divert passengers to alternative hubs in neighbouring provinces if the mountain erupts.

The Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said tremors happened less frequently on Sunday but were stronger than in previous days.

“The mountain has not erupted until now, the earthquake happens less frequently but the magnitude is getting stronger,” Gede Suantika, a senior volcanologist at the agency told AFP.

More than 1,000 people died when Mount Agung last erupted in 1963.

Villagers rest after being evacuated during the raised alert levels for the volcano on Mount Agung in Klungkung regency on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on September 22, 2017. // AFP PHOTO

Fanned by Myanmar’s civilian and military leaders, an information war has taken hold and is being embraced with gusto by a legion of satirists, meme-makers and internet trolls.

Local cartoonists, many of whom earned their revered status for skewering the former junta, have taken aim at the Rohingya.

One widely-shared sketch called ‘crocodile tears’ shows a group of reptiles swimming away from a bank of mutilated animals towards an eager Western cameraman.

“I had to flee my motherland,” a crying crocodile says into the microphone, a swipe at the testimonies of Rohingya refugees who have arrived in Bangladesh with accounts of atrocities by Myanmar’s army.

“There is something untrue about what they (the Rohingya) are saying,” Win Naing, one of Myanmar’s most famous cartoonists, told AFP.

The 58-year-old, whose pen name is Aw Pi Kyeh, said he just wanted to provoke thought in a highly charged situation.

“We draw cartoons with a spirit that loves the country.”

For decades the paranoid former junta sequestered its people from technology, global opinion and debate.

But since the country creaked open a few years ago Myanmar’s public has dived head first into Facebook and Twitter.

Now, anti-Rohingya diatribes are being ‘liked’, shared and retweeted — reinforcing long-held religious hatreds against the minority.

Since late August, around 430,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh, escaping an army crackdown in Rakhine state which the UN has called ‘ethnic cleansing’.

The global condemnation has triggered a defensive instinct in Myanmar where the Rohingya are not citizens and are broadly reviled.

Keyboard warriors

Armed with crass humour, internet fame and riding a wave of public opinion, cartoonists have delivered sharp counter-punches.

When Malala Yousafzai condemned fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to speak up for the Rohingya, one cartoonist hit back with a rendering of the Pakistani activist with human excrement instead of brains — a grim reference to her surgery after being shot in the head by the Taliban.

A sketch by cartoonist Okka Kyi Winn, liked nearly 10,000 times on his Facebook page, showed a UN insignia wrapped in a Middle-Eastern keffiyeh, suggesting the body is in cahoots with the Arab world.

While the intention may be pure satire, such images are contributing to a siege mentality in Myanmar, where keyboard warriors are trading blows with vocal pro-Rohingya groups scattered across the Muslim world.

The prevailing view among the Buddhist majority is that foreign media and international NGOs have embellished the plight of the Rohingya and unfairly bashed Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

‘The Lady’ has refused to weigh in on the squall of claims and counterclaims, saying only that there is a ‘huge iceberg of misinformation’.

Many outside Myanmar are baffled by the seeming lack of empathy, and the often violent rhetoric from a Buddhist people.

But toxic Islamophobia has been brewing in the country for years, fed in part by official rhetoric that the Muslim Rohingya are foreign invaders intent on taking a Buddhist land.

As his troops blanket Rakhine, Myanmar’s commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing has continued with Facebook posts branding the Rohingya as ‘terrorist extremists’ of ‘Bengali’ origin — a state-stamped slur that condemns them to the status of illegal migrants.

‘Better angels’

Newspapers, TV debates and social media have followed suit, jeering at the Rohingya as they flee, says Sein Win of the Myanmar Journalism Institute.

Some of the loudest noises are coming from people who fought repression under the junta, he told AFP, in a remarkable reshaping of the young democracy’s political landscape.

“I am disturbed by the actions of the media, civil society and even former political activists. You need to care about humans across the board, not just when it suits you,” he said.

On Friday US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy condemned the hate speech on social media and urged the “better angels” of the Myanmar people to find empathy for the Rohingya.

But cartoonists such as Maung Maung Fountain (pen name) argue their sketches “don’t insult any religion or any people”.

In one, he draws a camel — a code for Rohingya Muslims — that has edged its way into a tent made from the Myanmar flag then bellows ‘Human Rights’ at the startled Burmese man he has just evicted.

“I meant say that some people want more and more rights and opportunities.”//AFP

The group condemned the militant attack against the government security forces and the acts of violence on August 25, which killed scores of people, including insurgents and officials.

The violence and the Myanmar military’s “clearance operation” have displaced more than 420,000 people, mostly Muslim Rohingya who have fled to the Bangladesh border.

In a statement issued after their meeting on Saturday (local time in New York), the Asean foreign ministers strongly urged all the parties involved to avoid actions that will further worsen the situation on the ground.

They agreed that viable, long-term solutions to the root causes of the conflict must be found, including encouraging closer dialogue between Myanmar and Bangladesh, so that the affected communities can rebuild their lives.

They also underscored the importance of increased humanitarian access to the affected areas and said that assistance be given to all affected communities.

The Asean ministers also supported Myanmar’s humanitarian relief programme.

The Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) will work with the Myanmar Government-led body, which will deliver humanitarian assistance to all displaced inhabitants without discrimination.

The foreign ministers urged Myanmar to continue to implement the recommendations of the final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State led by former UN chief Kofi Annan.

They welcomed Myanmar’s establishment of a ministerial committee to implement the recommendations.

WHILE THE INTERNATIONAL community is working to help Rohingya who fled the military “clearance operation” in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, their ethnic kin in Thailand found it difficult to do anything on their behalf.

As the number of refugees, mostly Rohingya fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh since late last month, reached more than 420,000, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia Patrick Murphy said there was an urgent need to stop the violence and facilitate humanitarian assistance.

Murphy was in Myanmar from Monday to Wednesday to assess the situation and while there, he visited Rakhine and met with senior officials, including the leader of the civilian government, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the military commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing.

While Washington has limited engagement with the Tatmadaw – the Burmese military – the US supported the Suu Kyi government’s effort to end the crisis, he said.

“We appeal to the military, while they have a legitimate need to respond to the militant attack, there is equally a need to protect the civilian population, to facilitate humanitarian assistance and to contribute to reduce the tension and not discriminate when it comes to those who receive humanitarian assistance under the rule of law,” Murphy said.

He attended her national address in Nay Pyi Taw on Tuesday and said Suu Kyi had laid down fundamental principles for all parties in the conflict to end the crisis and stabilise Rakhine state.

Murphy was in Thailand on Friday and said he had consulted with the authorities in Bangkok to seek ways to help end the Rohingya crisis but did not reveal the Thai government’s stance, which apparently was similar to that of the Myanmar military.

The Thai junta, which prefers to call them “Bengali”, as do the Tatmadaw and Myanmar elite, has expressed its readiness to join international communities in providing humanitarian assistance, but is unlikely to offer refugee status to any more of them in Thailand.

Thailand has a few thousand Rohingya, who fled the trouble at home to settle in the kingdom since violence erupted some years ago.

Siyeed Alam and Muhammad Rafik have made new lives for themselves in Thailand since leaving their Rohingya clan in Rakhine state nearly 20 years ago. As they themselves are still struggling to acquire legal status in the Kingdom, there is little they can do to assist their friends and relatives fleeing to Bangladesh.

“These are the conditions that the fleeing Rohingya are living under,” Siyeed said in an interview with The Nation, showing a clip that one of his friends had sent him. “This is as much as we can do. Showing outsiders of what happen, speaking for them, and hoping them some international organisations will seriously look into the matter.”

A few years ago, the Rohingya were able to travel across the Andaman Sea in the hope of being able to settle in Thailand, Siyeed said. However, the recent insurgency had been so sudden that they had no time to prepare for such a trip, not even time to try to sneak through the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Their only choice was to keep fleeing westward to Bangladesh, even though they knew the refugee camps there might already be overloaded.

Muhammad and Siyeed might have been lucky is than they were merely adventurers, not crisis escapers, when they settled in Thailand and managed to get jobs.

Siyeed, who also chairs the Rohingya Association in Thailand, is a shopkeeper while Muhammad helps Thai courts as an interpreter for Rohingya facing legal problems.

They are mostly reduced to raising public awareness about the Rakhine crisis. Their Facebook page, Rohingya Association Thailand, actively shares news from a Rohingya perspective on the crisis in Rakhine and has gained more than 3,700 likes so far.

“We are not asking for special treatment – we know that it’s not our place to demand anything,” Siyeed said. “We also know how the Thais perceive us Rohingya. Some may be compassionate and some may not be. People can have different opinions and we’re fine with that.”

Hours earlier, in a rare personal attack, Kim took aim at Trump, branding him “mentally deranged” and a “dotard”, and warning he would “pay dearly” for his threat to destroy North Korea if challenged, uttered before the United Nations General Assembly.

The verbal clash came a day after Washington announced tougher sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, on the heels of a Trump speech in which he which he nicknamed Kim “Rocket Man” and declared him to be on a “suicide mission.”

“Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!” Trump posted early Friday in the first of a barrage of unrelated tweets.

Kim had delivered a tongue-lashing of his own — vowing to “surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire,” in an address read out on state television by a star news anchor before a still image of Kim at his desk.

Trump “insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history”, Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

“I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the US pay dearly for his speech.”

Sanctions

Russia and China have both appealed for an end to the escalating rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang, and Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained that that scrap resembled a “kindergarten fight between children.”

“We have to calm down the hot heads and understand that we do need pauses, that we do need some contacts,” Lavrov told a news conference after his address to the General Assembly.

On the fringes of the world meeting, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told reporters Pyongyang might now consider detonating a hydrogen bomb outside its territory.

“I think that it could be an H-bomb test at an unprecedented level perhaps over the Pacific,” he said — while adding: “It is up to our leader so I do not know well.”

Washington on Thursday authorized a tough new raft of sanctions in the latest effort to tighten the screws on Pyongyang over its banned weapons programs, following its sixth nuclear test — the largest yet — and the firing of two missiles over Japan in recent weeks.

Trump’s executive order, which prohibits firms from operating in the United States if they deal with North Korea, came after the UN Security Council agreed its own further set of sanctions aimed at reducing Pyongyang’s ability to trade with the outside world.

But analysts say the sanctions show no signs of working, and cautioned that the increasingly ill-tempered and personal exchanges between Washington and Pyongyang did not augur well.

“There are some very dangerous things that could come that move this from theater to reality. This is the time to be heading them off, not making them feel inevitable,” said John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul.

‘Still hope for peace’

Washington has refused to offer incentives to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table, despite appeals to do so from China and Russia, who are both uneasy over Trump’s bellicose tone.

However in a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump suggested the door to dialogue remained open.

“Why not?” he said, when asked whether there could be talks with Pyongyang.

China wields the most influence on North Korea, providing an economic lifeline. But it also fears the consequences if the regime collapses, such as an exodus of refugees or a US-allied, reunited Korea on its border.

“Negotiation is the only way out and deserves every effort,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the General Assembly.

The sentiments were echoed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said “military hysteria is not just an impasse, it’s disaster.”

North Korean envoy Ri is expected to meet on Saturday with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will send out feelers on possible diplomatic talks.

But Chung Sung-Yoon, analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP that the North itself may have shelved the idea of negotiations until it reaches its nuclear goal.

“People say this is all part of its brinkmanship strategy to force the US to come forward for negotiation. But the North is leaving too little room for the US to do so with the latest series of threats and provocations,” he said.

The violence comes days after Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi declared that the military had ceased its “clearance operations” in the border area.

The army claims it is trying to flush out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25.

But civilian refugees streaming into Bangladesh say they were terrorised by soldiers and vigilante Buddhist mobs who torched their villages to the ground.

The testimony, alongside satellite images of some 200 villages reduced to ash, have fuelled accusations that Myanmar’s army is systematically purging a Muslim minority haunted by years of persecution.

The UN has described the military campaign as “ethnic cleansing”.

The latest violence saw 20 homes catch fire in Maungdaw’s Kyain Chaung village on Thursday night, according to a statement posted by the government’s Information Committee.

“Security members went and checked the fire and are investigating its cause,” said the statement, adding that the flames burned through a community previously hit by fire.

The following morning a bomb detonated outside of a mosque in Mi Chaung Zay village in nearby Buthidaung township, according to the government.

The statement said “terrorists” were to blame for the blast, without specifying if they were linked to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) — the Rohingya militant group behind the ambushes on police posts.

No deaths or injuries were reported in either incident.

Myanmar’s government admits that scores of villages have been burned down over the past month.

But it has previously accused Rohingya militants of setting the fires and driving the communal violence that has also displaced some 30,000 Buddhists and Hindus.

Those refugees have largely fled south, with some cramming into temples and even a derelict football stadium outside the state capital of Sittwe.

The government has blocked independent media access to the conflict zone in northern Rakhine, making it difficult to verify the swirl of claims and counterclaims that has amplified Myanmar’s already bitter ethnic divides.

Suu Kyi, who lacks control over the army in a delicate power-sharing agreement, broke her silence on the crisis Tuesday in a televised address pitched to an international community baffled by her failure to speak up for the Rohingya.

The Muslim minority is denied citizenship by the state and has been the target of festering Islamaophobia in mainly Buddhist Myanmar for years.

The Nobel laureate expressed sympathy for the “suffering of all people” swept up in the violence.

But she also tried to paint a glass-half-full picture of the situation in Rakhine, announcing that “more than 50 percent of the villages of Muslims are intact.”

She said armed clashes and clearance operations had ceased since September 5th, even though AFP reporters have seen homes on fire in the weeks since.