Displaced by conflict in Myanmar, thousands of Rohingya gather along Bangladesh border seeking refuge

Yeni Safak
21/04/2024 Sunday

Rohingya in Myanmar's Rakhine state becoming victim of ongoing conflict between junta forces, insurgent groups, say community leaders

Thousands of Rohingya displaced due to conflict in Myanmar gathered along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border near the transboundary Naf River to seek refuge, a Rohingya leader in Bangladesh told Anadolu.

Moving Towards Understanding and Reconciliation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State

THE I DIPLOMAT
By Christopher Win
April 18, 2024

Recent comments by the commander of the Arakan Army have prompted a heated debate about history, language, and ethnic identity. 

The Sakya Man Aung pagoda in Mrauk-U, the ancient capital of Arakan, in Rakhine State, Myanmar.

In discussions of Myanmar’s intricate ethnic tapestry, the discourse around identity, particularly the term “Rohingya,” remains highly charged and complex. The controversy was reawakened last month, when the United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA), an ethnic Rakhine insurgent group fighting for autonomy from the central state, used the term “Bengali” in an official statement in lieu of the term “Rohingya.” This was then echoed in social media posts by Twan Mrat Naing, the leader of ULA/AA, sparking significant controversy among both domestic and international observers.

As Crisis in Myanmar Worsens, Security Council Must Take Resolute Action to End Violence by Country’s Military, Address Humanitarian Situation, Speakers Urge

United Nation
9595th Meeting (AM)
SC/15652
4 April 2024

Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

Senior UN Official Announces Plan to Appoint Special Envoy ‘in the Coming Days’ 

 Bringing the multifaceted crisis in Myanmar to the fore, speakers urged the Security Council today to take decisive measures to end violence by that country’s military and address the deteriorating humanitarian situation, also calling for the swift appointment of a United Nations Special Envoy to enhance the Organization’s engagement on the matter.

Myanmar Junta ‘Orchestrating Rohingya Protests’ Against Arakan Army in Rakhine

The Irrawaddy
by Hein Htoo Zan
March 22, 2024

Rohingya stage a protest against the Arakan Army in Buthidaung, Rakhine State on Tuesday. / Han Nyein Oo

 

Myanmar’s military regime is orchestrating Rohingya protests against the Arakan Army to sow ethnic division in Rakhine State, according to a Rohingya activist, an ethnic Rakhine politician, and community leaders.

Video Shows Rohingya Forcibly Recruited Into Myanmar Military

VOA
Ingyin Naing

March 14, 2024

 Dozens of young Rohingya men ride a military truck on March 9, 2024. (UGC courtesy video) 

washington — 

VOA has recently obtained video footage depicting Rohingya from Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps being trained as soldiers in Rakhine state, the scene of heavy fighting between Myanmar’s military junta and ethnic armed groups.

Will Myanmar’s Militias Relinquish Control After Victory?

zenith
Analysis
by Philipp Peksaglam
04.03.2024
Politics

Paul Vrieze / Voice of America

Myanmar’s junta has been on the back foot for quite some time now. The militias waging a civil war against the central government are gaining ground and start to plan the post-war order. Yet one ethnic minority remains marginalized.

Myanmar’s generals do not have much to celebrate these days. February 1st did present an occasion for any Putschists in a particularly festive mood: the three-year anniversary of the military coup. The 2021 takeover of the elected government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi permanently ended the generals’ brief flirt with democratic governance. Ever since, the conflict between the Tatmadaw, as the military is known, and regional ethnic insurgents dominates life in Myanmar.

Junta troops abduct 40 relatives of Muslim camp residents who fled conscription

RFA
Radio Free Asia
March 3 2024 

Some were publicly beaten for allegedly speaking to the media about recruitment efforts.

People walk through Kyauk Ta Lone camp in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, Oct. 3, 2019.
Ye Aung Thu/AFP

Junta troops in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state have beaten and abducted 40 family members of Muslim displaced camp residents who escaped being conscripted into military training, sources said Friday.

Protecting Rohingyas: Don’t repeat mistakes of the past

The Daily Star
Diplomatic Correspondent
Sat Mar 2, 2024 

UN rights chief urges int’l community 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has appealed to the international community not to repeat the failings of the past in protecting the Rohingya community in Myanmar's Rakhine State which has spiralled further in violence since November.

Scores of captive Muslims forced to undergo military training at displaced camp

RFA
By RFA Burmese
2024.02.28

Junta authorities threaten to kill the 107 mostly ethnic Rohingyas if they refuse.

The Kyauk Ta Lone camp for displaced people in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, Myanmar, is seen Oct. 4, 2019. Ye Aung Thu/AFP

 

Junta authorities are holding more than 100 mostly ethnic Rohingya Muslims captive at a camp for the displaced in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and threatening to kill them if they refuse to take part in military training, residents said Wednesday.

Myanmar junta detain over 400 Rohingya, citing obligation to get military training in Rakhine

mizzima
February 26, 2024

File Photo

In the third week of February, Myanmar’s Military Council apprehended more than 400 Rohingya men in Rakhine State, purportedly for compulsory participation in military training, as reported by people involved in addressing the Rohingya crisis.

Renewed conflict in Rakhine State poses new threat to Rohingya

ARAB NEWS
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
February 16, 2024  

Displaced Rohingya refugees from Rakhine state in Myanmar rest near Ukhia, at the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar. (AFP)

Since November, Rakhine State in Myanmar has been marred by renewed violence between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, shattering a year-long unofficial ceasefire and exacerbating an already dire situation for the Rohingya population. This latest wave of conflict is not only deepening the existing humanitarian crisis, but also leading to large-scale displacement of the Rohingya, further compounding the suffering of one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.

Border guards who fled Myanmar tell of losing contact with commanders

Radio Free Asia
Sharif Khiam and Abdur Rahman
Bandarban and Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
2024.02.09

Over 300 who crossed into Bangladesh have asked for assistance in returning to their homes.

Bangladeshis deliver an injured Rohingya who tried to cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh to members of the Border Guard Bangladesh in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 6, 2024. Abdur Rahman/BenarNews

 

Myanmar border guards and soldiers fled into Bangladesh earlier this week after losing contact with their commanders during fierce fighting in Rakhine state, an interpreter present during their conversation with Bangladesh officials told BenarNews on Friday.

Arakan Army captures two junta battalions in Rakhine state

Benar News
RFA Burmese
2024.02.08

The Arakan Army displays weapons seized after the capture of the Myanmar army’s Light Infantry Battalion 379 in Minbya township, Jan. 30, 2024.AA Info Desk

Arakan Army insurgents have captured two key military units in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, giving the group effective control of Minbya township and putting it in a position to challenge junta control of the state capital Sittwe, according to an ethnic rebel alliance and regional sources.

Rakhine conflict travel restrictions add to woes of Rohingya students

Frontier Mayanmar
January 22, 2024 

“What do you want to do after school or college?” It’s a question many young people are asked. But Rohingya students have so many restrictions and so little choice, that they often can’t answer.

Desperate Myanmar junta targets Rohingyas in ongoing Rakhine conflict

Dhaka Tribune
Tribune Desk
Publish : 30 Dec 2023

• The military targeted three Rohingya villages - Kaing Taw, Bu Talone, and Paung Tote
• At least 18 Rohingya killed in this area since November 2023
  

Houses and refugee shelters burned by Myanmar junta troops in Nattalin, Bago region/Collected

The embattled Myanmar military, grappling with significant losses in its conflict against the Arakan Army, carried out a severe assault on Zedi Taung village - a Rohingya settlement in Buthidaung Township, Rakhine State - on December 28.

A family of six, including three children, perished in the assault on the fateful night. Only one survivor managed to escape but sustained severe injuries as their home succumbed to flames, consuming the lifeless bodies.

နှုံးဘူး ဗျူဟာကုန်းကို AA အလုံးအရင်းနဲ့ ထိုးစစ်ဆင်

VOA
စံကျော်
၀၈ ဒီဇင်ဘာ၊ ၂၀၂၃

      ထရွန်အိုင်ဗျူဟာကုန်းကိုသိမ်းပိုက်ခဲ့ကြောင်း AA ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့သည့် မြေပုံညွှန်း (ဒီဇင်ဘာ ၅၊ ၂၀၂၃)

ရခိုင်မြောက်ပိုင်းနဲ့ ချင်းပြည်နယ်မှာ စစ်ကောင်စီနဲ့ AA ရက္ခိုင့်တပ်တော်ကြား ဒီကနေ့ အထိ ပစ်ခတ်မှု တွေရှိနေတာပါ။ ဒီကနေ့ နေ့လည်ပိုင်းကလည်း ပလက်ဝမြို့ပေါ်ကို လက်နက်ကြီး ကျည်ကျရောက် ပေါက်ကွဲခဲ့တာကြောင့် အရပ်သားတဦး ဒဏ်ရာရရှိခဲ့တာပါ။ ဒါ့အပြင် ပလက်ဝမြို့နယ်မှာ ရှိတဲ့စစ် ကောင် စီ အထိုင်ချ နှုံးဘူး ဗျူဟာကုန်းကို AA တပ်က အင်အား အလုံးအရင်းနဲ့ ထိုးစစ်ဆင်တိုက်ခိုက် နေတယ်လို့ AA ရက္ခိုင့်တပ်တော်ဘက်က ထုတ်ပြန်ပါတယ်။ ဒီအကြောင်း ရန်ကုန်ကလာတဲ့ သတင်း ကို အခြေခံပြီး ကိုစံကျော်က တင်ပြပေးပါမယ်။

Arakan Army’s Vision: Beyond borders, shaping Myanmar’s post-junta future

Dhaka Tribune
Hein Htoo Zan
Publish : 29 Nov 2023,

• Myanmar's Rakhine state has been the site of new clashes between the Arakan Army and the junta
• An alliance of Myanmar rebel forces recently launched an offensive called ‘Operation 1027’
• Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted a government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in the 2021 coup

The current war in Myanmar differs from past conflicts in the country because ethnic armies are no longer on the defensive, the spokesman for the most powerful ethnic army in Rakhine State told the Irrawaddy in an exclusive interview on Friday.

Junta troops are the ones how are on the defensive now as ethnic armies and resistance groups have unleashed fierce attacks on multiple fronts, Arakan Army (AA) spokesman Khaing Thu Kha explained.

2 more military camps in Rathedaung found deserted

Narinjara
Date: 25 November 2023 

Ah Ngu Maw border guard station and Taung Oo military camp in western Rathedaung, 20 miles north of Rakhine State capital Sittwe have been found deserted by the soldiers in fear of Arakan Army members.

Myanmar Military ‘Kidnapping Civilians for Ransom in Rakhine’

The Irrawaddy
November 24, 2023

Taungup Police Station 

Eleven businessmen are being held for ransom in Taungup Township, Rakhine State after the military seized them on Nov. 14 over alleged ties to the Arakan Army (AA), say family members of the men.

The businessmen were arrested by junta troops after the AA attacked border guard police outposts in Donepike and Cheinkalein villages in Rathedaung Township on Nov. 13.

Echoes of 2017 Genocide as Myanmar Junta Imposes ‘Four Cuts’ on Rakhine

The Irrawaddy
by Ko Oo
November 23, 2023

A junta warship in Rakhine

Fighting erupted between the Myanmar military and ethnic Rakhine Arakan Army (AA) on November 13, ending a yearlong ceasefire. The latest bout of fighting is the third since late 2018.