Anti-junta forces claim destruction of opium fields on Rakhine-Magway border

The People’s Revolution Alliance-Magway (PRA-Magway) says its members destroyed some 30 acres of opium plants last month in resistance-controlled areas of Ngape Township, Magway Region, where resistance fighters have been battling junta forces. The opium fields were in hilly areas—controlled until recently by Myanmar’s regime forces—between the towns of Ngape and Padan near the road leading to Ann in Rakhine State. The armed resistance in the area, which is mostly allied with the Arakan Army (AA) based in Rakhine State, has been fighting the military for control of the nearby Nat Yay Kan camp—formerly an air defence base—on the state’s border with Magway Region. “We’re conducting offensive operations at the same time. We’re clearing the fields in the territories where we’re conducting those operations,” a PRA-Magway officer said. Although they were unable to apprehend the opium cultivators, they conducted drug awareness education sessions for villagers in the surrounding areas and mobilized them by promising to assist with cultivating alternative crops to replace opium, he said. "We don't accept the international perception that associates Myanmar’s resistance with opium production, that resistance organizations cultivate opium, and that links resistance with opium. We view these as things that shouldn't be done, that are inappropriate, so we're destroying them," he said. Opium fields being destroyed by resistance forces (Photo: PRA-Magway) Control of the road between Ann and Padan is strategically important because of its proximity to a Directorate of Defense Industries factory—one of more than in Magway Region that supplies armaments for the junta—around 11 miles south of Ngape. Anti-junta forces in the area have been fighting persistently to capture the Nat Yay Kan base to gain control of the route, with junta troops and aircraft fending off their assaults.Last month, junta ground forces also succeeded in capturing the nearby village of Goke Gyi some two miles southeast of the Nat Yay Kan camp, with the AA launching offensive operations to retake it. In the meantime, the AA and allies have besieged the Nat Yay Kan camp and occupied neighbouring villages. Clashes to take full control of the camp are ongoing, according to the PRA-Magway officer, with the junta forces deploying aircraft and drones as well as shelling from an artillery battalion base in Padan. “Capturing Nat Yay Kan will be difficult. We’re still fighting. They are continuing to defend it so fiercely because if the Nat Yay Kan tactical hill falls, Padan will fall next, and so will Ngape,” the PRA-Magway officer said.

Anti-junta forces claim destruction of opium fields on Rakhine-Magway border

Fighters allied with the Arakan Army in Magway Region’s Ngape Township said they were mobilising local farmers to cultivate alternative crops

Subscribe for full access

For Myanmar migrants in Thailand, hope is a 100-baht lottery ticket

‘Will it be different this time, Grandson?’

Across a border and into a war: A Karenni leader’s final journey

When going home is impossible: Myanmar nationals find solace in Singapore’s Peninsula Plaza

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

Aerial assault by Myanmar’s military kills mother, three daughters in Sagaing Region

Three Myanmar resistance fighters killed in two separate incidents in Sagaing Region

Belarus loans debated by Myanmar’s junta-controlled parliament

Myanmar junta leader says will take back migrants from Malaysia ‘as soon as possible’