Rohingya militants executed Hindu villagers in Myanmar last year in a rush of violence that eventually drove some 700,000 refugees from the country, a new report reveals.

New York-based human rights group Amnesty International, in a statement issued early today, said the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa), an armed group which attacked security installations in Myanmar's Rakhine state last August, "is responsible for at least one, and potentially a second, massacre of up to 99 Hindu women, men and children as well as additional unlawful killings and abductions of Hindu villagers".