Myanmar’s Rakhine state engulfed by conflict as rebels claim victory

BANGKOK — Intense fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state between the military regime and the Arakan Army (AA) ethnic armed group has dealt a further setback to the country’s military rulers. It has also fueled concerns about mass displacement and the destruction of dwellings amid spiraling communal tensions between ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya.

The AA said on Sunday it had taken complete control of Buthidaung township in northern Rakhine, about 35 kilometers from the border with Bangladesh, following the fall of the regime’s strategic military command base on Saturday.

Human rights groups and aid organizations expressed alarm on Sunday about reports of the burning of much of Buthidaung and the displacement of tens of thousands of residents in the area, primarily Rohingya Muslims and some ethnic Rakhine.

In a statement on Sunday night, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk appealed to the AA and military regime to pause the fighting and allow humanitarian access.

“I am deeply alarmed by reports of renewed violence and property destruction in Buthidaung township in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, resulting in the displacement of potentially tens of thousands of civilians, mainly Rohingya,” Turk said. “With inter-communal tensions between ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya high — and being actively stoked by the military — this is a critical period when the risk of yet further atrocity crimes is particularly acute.”

Rakhine state, which lies along the country’s western coast by the Bay of Bengal, was the scene of a brutal military campaign that drove more than 750,000 Rohingya minority Muslims across the border into Bangladesh in late 2017.

The AA, which is led by ethnic Rakhine people, posted photos over the weekend showing its fighters posing with their flag in central Buthidaung. The State Administration Council, as the military regime is known, has not yet commented.

The fall of Buthidaung followed heavy fighting in multiple parts of Rakhine state over recent months, and has highlighted the remarkable gains made by the AA. The armed group now claims to control 180 military bases and seven of 17 townships in Rakhine state as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state.

In northern Rakhine, about 300,000 people are spread across two main townships bordering Bangladesh, Buthidaung and Maungdaw. Sources on the ground estimated that 100,000 or more may have been displaced in the last few weeks of fighting, mainly Rohingya Muslims who account for most of the population in northern Rakhine.

Aid organizations working in northern Rakhine, including U.N. agencies, confirmed that they had evacuated international and most local staff in recent weeks.

A worker at one local organization in northern Rakhine state said it was still distributing emergency relief supplies, but warned of an impending humanitarian crisis. “Some who fled the fighting or burning in the last days are injured, most have no food, there is almost no help at hand,” he said on Sunday.

Adding to recent tensions between Rakhine and Rohingya groups are contradictory claims about the forces behind the burning of Buthidaung, with some Rohingya groups accusing AA troops of systematically razing thousands of homes of Rohingya residents in Buthidaung after warning them on Friday to evacuate by Saturday morning.

“When the Rohingya refused to leave, they set fire to the entire downtown area at 9:30 p.m. [on Friday], not even waiting until their own deadline,” the Free Rohingya Coalition, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

Nay San Lwin, the group’s co-founder, estimated about 150,000 residents, mainly Rohingya, had been left homeless by the conflict and needed urgent humanitarian assistance. Many were sleeping on the road or in paddy fields, and were trying to reach nearby Maungdaw but were blocked by AA forces, he said.

Khaing Thukha, an AA spokesman, denied the allegations and told news agencies that AA troops were assisting Muslim villagers who had fled the fighting. He said that Myanmar military aircraft and Muslim insurgent groups aligned with the military had set fire to parts of Buthidaung township.

In efforts to counter allegations that it was targeting Rohingya communities, the AA issued statements on social media that it would protect “all inhabitants of Rakhine, regardless of race and religion.” The group has also posted videos of AA troops helping to evacuate Rohingya civilians from conflict areas.

But other statements by the group’s leaders have taken a more hostile tone in recent weeks, accusing Rohingya of betraying the Rakhine people to side with the military regime and other anti-AA groups.

There have been well-documented reports of forced conscription of Rohingya by the Myanmar military in northern Rakhine, as well as coerced recruitment of Rohingya youths — some as young as 14 — from towns and refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, about 120 km from Buthidaung.

Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya who is deputy minister for human rights in the resistance movement’s parallel National Unity Government, told Nikkei Asia that the systematic burning of the town had added urgency to the situation in northern Rakhine.

While not laying specific blame, he called for a “comprehensive and impartial investigation” and said that “those responsible must be held accountable.”

Civilian and military casualties from the Buthidaung conflict are not known, but local sources estimated they run into the “many hundreds.”

Fighting has spread across the country since the military takeover in February 2021, which fueled the rise of the opposition-linked People’s Defense Force alongside long-established ethnic armed groups.

The AA and two northeastern groups, known collectively as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, launched sweeping attacks across northeast and western Myanmar last October. Since then, Myanmar’s military has lost control of most key trading posts along the country’s borders, including with China, India and now Bangladesh.

After the military briefly lost control of key trading town Myawaddy on the Thai border in April to the Karen National Union (KNU) and allied forces, the town fell back into the hands of pro-regime forces. But the vital overland trade route to Myanmar’s Yangon from Thailand remains blocked by KNU forces, which control most of the surrounding area.

The AA’s Buthidaung victory came as reports emerged of the breakdown of Chinese-brokered talks in Kunming in southern China between the military regime and the AA. The talks stalled over the AA’s demand for the military regime to withdraw all forces from Rakhine state, according to Myanmar media reports.

The outcome of a broader negotiation between the regime and the Three Brotherhood Alliance — primarily about restarting border trade and reducing conflict — remain unclear, the reports said.

source : asia.nikkei