Some 1,000 Rohingya Muslims desperate to leave Myanmar are camped on this exposed, sun-baked beach on the Bay of Bengal waiting for a boat to carry them to sanctuary in Bangladesh.
Having kept northern parts of Rakhine State virtually off limits since it launched a counterinsurgency operation there in late August, Myanmar's military made a rare show of openness on Sunday by taking foreign journalists to see one of the beaches from which Rohingya are trying to escape.
Well over 600,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to find shelter in the refugee camps, the living victims of what a top U.N. official has called "ethnic cleansing.