SITTWE: At least 88 people have been killed in sectarian bloodshed in Myanmar this month, the authorities said on Monday, with more than 26,000 others forced to flee a wave of rioting and arson.

Hundreds more homes were burned down over the weekend as security forces struggled to quell clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine that have seen whole neighborhoods razed.

Four more deaths were reported, although they were believed to be from earlier clashes, bringing the total death toll since June to about 180. Rights groups fear that the actual number killed could be much higher.

“About 300 houses were burnt down in Pauktaw town on Sunday but there were no casualties in that incident,” an official said.

Decades-old animosity between Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims exploded in June after the apparent rape and murder of an ethnic Rakhine woman sparked a series of vicious revenge attacks.

Myanmar’s 800,000 stateless Rohingya are viewed by the United Nations (UN) as among the most persecuted minorities on the planet.

Seen by the Myanmar government and many Burmese as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, they face tight restrictions on their movements and limited access to employment, education and public services.

New York-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday released satellite images showing what it described as “extensive destruction” in a mainly Rohingya Muslim area of Kyaukpyu—the site of a major pipeline taking gas to China.

Virtually all structures appear to have been wiped from the landscape.

Other Muslims in Rakhine have also been swept up in the latest violence, including the Kaman, one of Myanmar’s officially recognized ethnic groups.

The UN estimates that 26,500 people—mostly Muslims—have been displaced since October 21, in addition to about 75,000 people already crammed into squalid camps following the June unrest.

The new fighting has caused an influx of boats carrying thousands of people to the Rakhine state capital Sittwe.

The unrest has prompted a growing international outcry, with the UN warning it could jeopardize the country’s widely praised reforms.