International aid groups in Burma have urged the government to allow free access to Arakan State, where an army offensive has sent 480,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh but hundreds of thousands remain cut off from food, shelter and medical care.

In a speech last week, Aung San Suu Kyi said all people in Arakan State “have access to education and healthcare services without discrimination.” For critics, however, that’s simply not true — a contention supported by a report that Suu Kyi’s own government has embraced.

Relief agencies struggling to reach hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims displaced by strife in northwestern Burma are facing rising hostility from ethnic Arakanese Buddhists who accuse the United Nations and foreign aid groups of only helping Muslims.

The United States wants Burma to take urgent action to end violence in Arakan State, where a military offensive has created a crisis that could jeopardise its economic and political transition, a US official said on Friday.

Burma’s army chief called on Thursday for people internally displaced by violence in Arakan State to go home and rebuild communities, but he made no mention of 422,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh to escape his forces’ operations.

Hundreds of Buddhists in Burma tried to block a shipment of aid to Muslims in Arakan State, where the United Nations has accused the military of ethnic cleansing, with a witness saying protesters threw petrol bombs before police dispersed them by firing into the air.