A minister in the Chin state government has rejected claims by the Arakan Army (AA) that it isn’t holding 21 civilians missing from villages in Paletwa township and has called for their immediate release.
Soe Htet, the state’s minister for municipal affairs, said in response to a statement released by the AA on September 30 that the group’s denial that it is still detaining the villagers was “inconsistent.”
“If they are saying that they don’t have the missing civilians, then where did they go? Have they been killed? What do they mean when they say they don’t ‘have’ these people? Their statement is inconsistent,” the minister said.
The AA has been accused of abducting more than 200 civilians in southern Chin state’s Paletwa township since it began fighting in western Myanmar five years ago. Of these, around 180 have since been released, but another 21 remain unaccounted for.
According to Soe Htet, the majority of the victims are from villages near the Lemyo, Pi and Kaladan rivers. He added that most were captured over the past two years, as clashes between the AA and the Tatmadaw have intensified.
In its September 30 statement, the AA denied abducting the missing civilians, but added that those who were being interrogated would be released without harm if they were found to be not guilty of unspecified offenses.
Meanwhile, the AA and the Tatmadaw have been clashing continuously in neighboring Rakhine state’s Rathedaung and Minbya townships since the start of this month, resulting in a number of civilian casualties.
One of the victims was an internally displaced person (IDP) from Sapho Kyun in the village of Kan Pyin, in northwestern Rathedaung township. According to Bekka, an IDP aid worker based in Rathedaung, the villager was hit by a gunshot fired from a military boat on the Mayu River at around 11 a.m. on Monday.
Kyaw Tin Maung, an IDP who witnessed the incident, told Myanmar Now that the gunfire was indiscriminate. “They fired so many times. We can’t say how many times, because we were all in hiding,” he said.
Later that same day, three Rohingya men were shot and killed, and three more were arrested, after Tatmadaw forces opened fire on two boats in Minbya township.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Myanmar military said that it “had to” fire on the boats because they didn’t respond to orders to stop, in violation of security measures in force in the area.
According to the Rakhine Ethnics Congress (REC), a Sittwe-based aid group, there were 226,000 IDPs in Rakhine state as of October 1.
On September 29, the Tatmadaw announced that it would extend a temporary nationwide ceasefire until the end of October. However, areas where the AA is active were not included in the move.
