Two Rohingya women killed in Myanmar shelling

YANGON: Two Rohingya women were killed and seven others injured in shelling the Myanmar military and insurgents blamed on each other, days after the UN's top court ordered the country to protect the beleaguered Muslim minority.

Military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told AFP said that one woman was killed on the spot by "heavy weapons" while another died after arriving at hospital in conflict-torn northern Rakhine state.

He blamed the deaths on incursions by the Arakan Army, rebels fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in the same area where the Rohingya crisis unfolded.

But a spokesperson for the Arakan Army said there had been no fighting with the military in that area and they are "accusing and faking it". The conflict has seen scores of civilians killed, hundreds wounded and some 100,000 displaced in the past year.