7 lakh plus Rohingyas in B'desh now: United Nations

"The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that the number of Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar into Bangladesh since late August has now topped 480,000," he said. "This brings the total number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to more than 700,000 people."

The Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority, are denied citizenship under a 1982 Myanmar citizenship law.

The Myanmar government recognizes them as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.

A crackdown by Myanmar's army, launched in response to attacks by Rohingya militants on August 25, has pushed vast numbers of refugees from the stateless Muslim minority across the border with Bangladesh. The violence has incubated a humanitarian crisis on both sides of the border.

"As part of its contribution to the response plan led by the Bangladeshi authorities, a cargo jet chartered by the UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) carrying 100 metric tons of urgently needed shelter supplies landed in Dhaka this (Tuesday), Dujarric said. "Two more aid flights are scheduled to arrive." "Despite the efforts being made on the ground, the massive influx seeking safety is outpacing the capacity to respond," the spokesman said. "Many of those recently arrived are deeply traumatized."

The latest refugees, mainly women and children, have been telling authorities they were chased from their homes by vigilantes after a deadly rebel raid August 25 on security posts.

COX'S BAZAR: Rika Dhar watched as her husband, two brothers and countless neighbours were brutally hacked to death with machetes by masked men who stormed their Hindu village in western Myanmar and frogmarched the terrified inhabitants to the hills. "After the killing, they dug three large pits and threw them inside. Their hands were still tied behind them and their eyes blindfolded," said 25-year-old Dhar in a Hindu camp inside Bangladesh where she fled with her two children. Eyewitnesses told AFP the bloodshed occurred outside their small Hindu village in Kha Maung Seik in northern Rakhine state, where Myanmar authorities have exhumed 45 corpses from mass graves since Sunday. The army says the grim discoveries are evidence of a massacre by Muslim Rohingya militants on August 25, the same day the insurgents launched coordinated raids on police posts that unleashed a surge of communal bloodshed.