AA seizes last junta base in Minbya Township, Rakhine State

The Arakan Army (AA) captured the last remaining regime outpost at a military training centre in Minbya Township, Rakhine State on Monday, according to local civilians and a public statement from the AA. AA fighters found a large cache of weapons and ammunition as they overran the training centre, the armed group’s statement said, as well as the bodies of many junta soldiers killed in the preceding battle. A Minbya Township resident confirmed that the AA began its assault on the training centre, located on the Sittwe-Yangon road some 10 miles southeast of Minbya, on February 17 and succeeded in capturing it nine days later. He added that the military had responded with airstrikes on nearby villages. “Some of the junta soldiers didn’t surrender, but instead retreated upstream on Hpone Thar Creek, and the AA is pursuing them now,” the Minbya Township resident told Myanmar Now. “I think a lot of junta soldiers were killed yesterday. That would explain the airstrikes on villages that had nothing to do with the battle.” The junta air force carried out nighttime air raids on the villages at around 1am on Tuesday, severely injuring civilians in one village about eight miles from the training centre and destroying a hospital and several houses in another, the Minbya Township local said. “Two bombs fell on a school in Thay Kan and another one fell in the middle of the village, and around 12 people were injured. Then the military bombed the hospital in Min Hpu,” he said, adding that it was still unclear how bad the resulting casualties had been in Min Hpu. Another local man living near Thay Kan confirmed that the air force had struck both villages. “The school in Thay Kan was totally destroyed. Two or three civilian houses too. Nothing is left of the Min Hpu village hospital. All the patients there had to be moved to another village,” he said. He added that he had seen women and children after the bombing with injuries to their heads, arms, stomachs, buttocks, and feet at makeshift clinics for the wounded in Thay Kan. “We were asleep when they started dropping bombs, so we had to get up, run into the field, and duck down. We couldn’t sleep anymore knowing they might come back. The aircraft flew so low that our houses were shaking,” the local man said. “We are still worried now about finding a safe place to sleep for the night.” According to AA’s statement, the bombing of the Min Hpu hospital resulted in severe injuries to the staff and patients as well as destroying most of the buildings on the hospital compound. The Min Hpu hospital is civilian-operated and has been administering treatment to junta prisoners of war and their families, the AA claimed. Ruins of the hospital in Min Hpu hospital (AA) The AA’s capture of the training centre comes just under four weeks after the armed group seized bases manned by the Myanmar army’s light infantry battalions (LIB) 379, 380, and 541—which operate under Military Operations Command No. 9 (MOC-9) based in Kyauktaw, Rakhine State—on January 30. The AA seized the MOC-9 headquarters as part of its takeover of Kyauktaw Township, completed on February 7. Fighting has intensified between the AA and junta forces elsewhere in the state, including Ramree (Yanbye) Township, where some 80 regime troops deployed as reinforcements have already been killed, according to the AA’s statement. Helicopters dropped off a force of around 120 soldiers in Ramree Township—including troops from infantry battalion (IB) based in Kyone Pyaw, Ayeyarwady Region and from LIB 373 based in Ann Township, Rakhine State—on February 24. Around half of the reinforcement troops were killed in battles with the AA over the next two days, according to the AA’s statement, and 20 more were killed by February 26. The AA has seized and held dozens of junta outposts in Rakhine State as well as gaining total control of Pauktaw, Minbya, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U, and Myebon townships. The powerful ethnic armed organisation also continues to hammer at junta positions in Rakhine State’s Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Ponnagyun, and Rathedaung townships and has begun to advance on the state capital of Sittwe.

AA seizes last junta base in Minbya Township, Rakhine State

Soon after the Arakan Army overwhelmed the regime forces’ defences at a training centre 10 miles from Minbya, junta airstrikes injured civilians and destroyed a hospital in nearby villages

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