Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi began her campaign in volatile Rakhine state Friday with a hundreds-strong security force, as she risks a rare brush with hostility in a region where Buddhist hardliners accuse her of sympathizing with maligned local Muslims.

The opposition leader was whisked out of Thandwe airport in a convoy surrounded by supporters of her National League for Democracy (NLD) passing on its way around two dozen riot police gathered in the town.

Myanmar on Thursday signed a ceasefire with eight ethnic minority armies in a step towards ending decades of civil war, a move weakened by the refusal of several other rebel groups to join the deal. 

The truce is the fruit of more than two years of negotiations and was a key goal of reformist President Thein Sein ahead of November elections, which are likely to sweep his army-backed party from power.

The United States has warned its citizens travelling to Myanmar of potential security problems during the landmark November elections pitting Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition against the country's military elites.

Myanmar is one month away from polls that many hope will be the country's freest for decades, with Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy likely to wrest significant gains from the quasi-civilian ruling party that has governed since the end of outright junta rule in 2011. 

Aung San Suu Kyi intends to lead a new Myanmar government if her party wins historic polls despite being barred from the presidency, she says in an interview to be broadcast Wednesday.

"If the NLD wins the elections and we form a government, I'm going to be the leader of that government whether or not I'm the president," Suu Kyi told the India Today television channel.

The United States, Japan and other major powers on Tuesday raised fears that rising religious tensions in Myanmar could spark "division and conflict" as campaigning begins for historic elections.

Myanmar goes to the polls on November 8 in what many hope will be its freest vote in generations after decades of army rule, with Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party widely tipped to make huge gains.

Myanmar's national human rights body has urged the government to take legal action against police who beat up protesters at an education reform rally, as dozens of activists remain detained over a case that has sparked international alarm.

The rare call from the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC) in the former junta-run nation on Friday comes after its investigation into the March student-led protest.

Myanmar lawmakers on Friday held their last meetings at parliament as the body was suspended ahead of crucial general elections set to redraw the former junta-ruled nation's political landscape.

The combined houses of parliament will reconvene only after the November 8 vote, the first nationwide poll in a quarter of a century to be contested by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's hugely popular National League for Democracy (NLD).

Malaysian police said on Sunday they had found 24 human skeletons - all believed to be victims of trafficking - in newly discovered graves along the Thai border in the northern Malaysian state of Perlis.

The latest gruesome discovery comes after police found 39 graves and 28 abandoned "detention" camps capable of housing hundreds of people in May, laying bare the grim extent of the region's migrant crisis.

The European Union said Friday that it has agreed to send observers to historic upcoming Myanmar elections in an effort to "strengthen democracy" in the former military-run nation.

Myanmar's November 8 parliamentary vote will be the first nationwide election to include Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition in a quarter of a century and is seen as a key benchmark of political transition in a country still burdened by the legacy of decades of army rule.

A U.S.-based rights group has urged Myanmar to prevent the exclusion of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya from voting in crucial November elections after the minority were stripped of their identity cards earlier this year.

The Carter Center also warned that growing anti-Islamic hate speech in the Buddhist-majority nation could see religious tensions flare during the upcoming campaign period.