A group of Myanmar Muslims beat eight Buddhists to death at an Indonesian detention center Friday after becoming enraged at news of deadly communal violence in their homeland, officials said.

The Rohingya Muslims launched the attack at the immigration center on Sumatra island using weapons fashioned from smashed up beds and broom handles after seeing pictures of religious violence in Myanmar last month that left dozens dead.

A fire killed 13 students at a Muslim school in Myanmar's main city on Tuesday, police said, raising tensions in the wake of sectarian clashes despite police assurances that the blaze was accidental.

The government called for calm and sent security forces to the scene after an angry crowd gathered demanding answers about the deadly fire in Yangon, which follows a wave of Buddhist-Muslim killings and arson in central Myanmar.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday urged Myanmar to investigate the failure of police to stop a recent wave of Buddhist-Muslim killing and arson attacks.

The New York-based rights watchdog released satellite images which it said showed more than 800 buildings were totally destroyed in the central town of Meiktila, leaving several charred areas where homes and properties once stood.

The death toll from recent communal violence in central Myanmar has risen to 43 with more than 1,300 homes and other buildings destroyed, state media reported on Saturday.

Sixty-eight people have been arrested in connection with the Buddhist-Muslim unrest, which has left 11,376 people homeless, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter headed Friday to Myanmar and Nepal, hoping to find ways to encourage democracy in the two Asian nations, which are undergoing political transitions.

Carter, 88, will first head to Nepal, where he will encourage political parties to hold delayed elections and to move forward on reconciliation from the civil war, the Atlanta-based Carter Center said in a statement.

Aung San Suu Kyi joined Myanmar's generals at an annual military parade for the first time Wednesday as the army put on a show of strength in the face of spreading sectarian bloodshed.

Her symbol-laden appearance at the Armed Forces Day parade in the capital Naypyidaw underscored the country's startling transformation since the former junta ceded power to a reformist government two years ago.

Communal riots in Myanmar have spread closer to the main city Yangon, police said Tuesday as the United States warned against traveling to parts of the country in the wake of unrest that has left 40 dead.

Fresh clashes broke out late on Monday in villages in the Bago region north of Yangon, police said, as the Buddhist-Muslim violence that has gripped areas further north rippled out towards the country's commercial hub.

The United Nations envoy to Myanmar on Sunday viewed the devastation wrought by deadly communal riots in the center of the country and met some of the estimated 9,000 people displaced.

Religious violence in the town of Meiktila has claimed at least 32 lives and displaced thousands since starting Wednesday, according to officials, leaving swathes of the town in ruin and prompting an army-enforced state of emergency.

The death toll from religious violence in central Myanmar rose to 32 Saturday as rescuers found bodies in the ashes of homes torched during an eruption of communal unrest, officials said.

Almost 9,000 people have been displaced by Buddhist-Muslim unrest that tore through the town of Meiktila, according to the information ministry.

Thai rescue workers picked through the ashes of hundreds of shelters for Myanmar refugees Saturday after a ferocious blaze swept through a camp in northern Thailand killing 35 people.

Around 100 people were injured in Friday's fire at the Mae Surin camp in Mae Hong Son province, provincial governor Narumol Paravat told AFP by telephone, giving a reduced toll from the 45 dead previously stated.