Clashes, blockade in southern Rakhine State hit minority IDPs hardest

As battles spread to Ramree Island, southern Rakhine State in recent weeks, the already precarious living situation for Muslim people in a local displaced persons’ camp has only become more desperate. In mid-November, the Arakan Army (AA) launched a series of attacks on the Myanmar military in northern Rakhine State. These were planned in coordination with the anti-junta Operation 1027 offensive carried out by the Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed organisations, of which the AA is a member. The resulting clashes remained mostly confined to the northern part of Rakhine State until January, when they spread to townships south of the state capital of Sittwe. While the fighting in these areas has impacted nearly all civilians living near battle sites indiscriminately, the hardship has been especially severe for a local community of displaced Rohingya and Kaman (Kamein) Muslims. These internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been living in a camp near Kyaukphyu, located near the northwest shore of Ramree Island, since 2012. In that year, ethnically targeted, violent riots forced Muslims to flee their homes in Rakhine State. Those who had been living in Kyaukphyu sought shelter in a temporary encampment that would later develop into a long-term refuge for displaced people on the outskirts of town. Kaman Muslims—as distinct from Rakhine state’s largest religious minority, the Rohingya people—predominantly speak Rakhine as their first language. Authorities acknowledge Kaman people as a minority ethnic group with citizenship rights in Myanmar, but do not extend the same recognition to the Rohingya people or identity. Nevertheless, Kaman people have also experienced discrimination, persecution, and infringements on their rights due to their religion. Along with Rohingya people, they became targets of riots in 2012 that killed some 2,000 Muslims and displaced thousands more from their homes in Rakhine State. Hla Phyu, 20, arrived in the camp with her family as an eight-year-old in 2012. They were fleeing a violent mob that had attacked their hometown during the height of the riots, after authorities had publicly blamed Muslims for the rape and murder of a Buddhist Rakhine woman. Still unable to return home after more than a decade in the camp, Hla Phyu has no choice but to remain and live on aid provided by the World Food Programme and delivered by Myanmar authorities. Along with more than 1,100 mostly Muslim IDPs—including both Kaman and Rohingya people—Hla Phyu has had no home but the IDP camp near Kyaukphyu for the last 12 years. A recent reduction of food aid, as well as new restrictions that the Myanmar junta has imposed on the camp inhabitants’ movements, will only reinforce the obstacles she and the other camp residents face. At one time, inhabitants of the IDP camp could rely on regular rations of rice, cooking oil, beans, soap, and other essential goods, according to Hla Phyu, but now they only get monthly cash payments of 30,000 kyat (US $14) per person. Because they are unable to visit towns or grow their own food, IDPs in the camp are now confronting the near impossibility of living on 30,000 kyat per month as commodity prices soar, Hla Phyu said. “We don’t have space for growing our own food in the camp. Some days we simply starve ourselves, eating just a little bit of rice without curry,” she told Myanmar Now. “It’s now been two or three months that we’ve been unable to go shopping in the town. Meanwhile, prices are shooting up and bigger families are facing the worst of the trouble with only 30,000 kyat,” she added. While some in the camp are simply trying to survive on less with great difficulty, Hla Phyu said, others have resorted to borrowing and gone into debt. Amid the recent fighting in Rakhine State, the junta military has cut off transportation between Kyaukphyu and surrounding villages since November 13. This blockade, which has caused hardship even to the Buddhist majority in the area, is doubly harmful for displaced Kaman Muslims, who are now only permitted “emergency access” to the town at three scheduled times per week. The new limitation compounds the hindrances they already suffer without the freedom to earn a living, pursue an education, or move where they choose. Despite some travel restrictions, Hla Phyu added, people in the camp used to be able to go into town routinely, but now the military is only allowing people to leave the camp in the event of an “emergency.” “We can’t go out at all. They only allow it for emergency reasons,” she said. “Even in an emergency, the military only allows ten people to leave the camp by car at once and does not allow any family members to accompany them.” She said that at times more than ten people needed medical treatment outside the camp, but because of the ten-person maximum, authorities would not let them in the car regardless of the severity of their illness. “If there are more than ten people, they get left for dead. Even if we are dying at home, we just have to die because we can’t go into town,” she added. Crackdown on drug stores The military has been enforcing a de facto ban on transporting medicines and placed strict limits on the operation of pharmacies and clinics in and near Kyaukphyu, apparently attempting to prevent drugs from reaching anti-junta forces. The military arrested the proprietor of a family-owned pharmacy, the proprietor's daughter, and a shop employee in Kyaukphyu on January 3, as well as briefly detaining an employee at another pharmacy. “I don’t know why they were arrested,” a family member of the detained pharmacy owner told Myanmar Now. “We have a drug store, and we sell drugs to our customers. It’s not as though we sell to some and not to others.” He declined to comment further on the arrests out of concern for his family’s safety. Prior to the arrests, the military had been enforcing a formal ban against the operation of clinics and pharmacies in Kyaukphyu for several days, a local source told Myanmar Now. “I experienced it myself when I tried to buy medicine to help with a blood clotting problem. But the drug store wasn’t selling it after the beginning of the week,” he said. The military is killing two birds with one stone, the Kyaukphyu local said, arresting pharmacy owners to curtail the availability of drugs while also instilling fear among the general population about what may happen if they buy or sell them. Fighting between the AA and junta forces on January 26 resulted in injuries to six civilians who had to be rushed to a village clinic instead of Kyaukphyu, he said, noting that this occurred only a few days before the junta started enforcing its prohibition on selling and distributing drugs. “It could just be a coincidence, but it could be their intention to control the drug flow from Kyaukphyu to the villages,” he said. “Transporting medicine is essentially banned,” a Kyaukphyu healthcare worker confirmed. “Our hospital is much less busy than usual, lacking patients because it is almost impossible to get through security checkpoints without an emergency pass,” the healthcare worker added. With roads blocked, only a few towns with airports such as Sittwe, Thandwe, and Kyaukphyu can receive goods and supplies directly from outside of Rakhine State. Pharmacies have been distributing drugs to villages outside of town, but the military seems intent on halting this common practice, according to a former member of the state parliament who asked that his identity be withheld for security reasons. “I’m told the military issued orders not to sell drugs to anyone outside of the town,” he said. The pharmacy where the arrests occurred had been supplying drugs to a village outside of Kyaukphyu, according to the former lawmaker. Security forces manning a checkpoint at the town entrance had found drugs in a vehicle attempting to pass through, traced them back to the pharmacy, and made the arrests, he said, before confiscating the entire drug inventory the following day and handing it over to their police battalion. They have blocked roads between the town and villages, the ex-lawmaker said. Apparently, they want to cut off supplies to villages to prevent them from falling into the hands of the AA. “Instead of resolving the problem, they are creating and provoking more problems,” the former lawmaker told Myanmar Now. “They are not helping civilians, instead they are oppressing the people even more,” he added. “Civilians are not part of the war in any way.” What junta chief Sr.-Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and other regime officials said in the news—that they had taken power on behalf of the people in response to electoral fraud—was a total misrepresentation, the former lawmaker said. What they are doing is oppressing civilians, he added, not helping them.

Clashes, blockade in southern Rakhine State hit minority IDPs hardest

With the military blocking travel and reducing food rations, a community of mostly Kaman and Rohingya Muslims displaced from their homes since 2012, is suffering even worse hardship than the Buddhist majority amid fighting in southern Rakhine State

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