Fire destroys Doctors Without Borders facility in northern Rakhine State

Displaced and vulnerable people will have greater difficulty accessing vital aid after the Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) office and pharmacy in Buthidaung, Rakhine State burned down on Monday, the international humanitarian organisation said. In a public statement on its website, MSF—which provides medical services in conflict zones—said their Buthidaung office and pharmacy were destroyed in the fire along with equipment, medical supplies, and lifesaving medicines including antibiotics used to treat pneumonia in children. “No staff were injured, but all medical stock and office equipment were destroyed,” the statement said. The destruction of the facility comes amid clashes between the Arakan Army (AA)—Rakhine State’s largest and most powerful ethnic armed organisation—and the Myanmar junta for control of Buthidaung Township. More than 200 houses in the township have burned and thousands have been forced to flee their homes for safety, according to the MSF. Local sources confirmed that houses have burned down in Buthidaung, and claimed that junta forces set the fires that destroyed the MSF office, but that the organisation did not appear to be the intended target. “They burnt specifically Rakhine houses in Ward 4, where coincidentally the MSF office is located. It caught fire as well,” a Buthidaung local said. Myanmar Now could not confirm the cause of the fires independently. The same source claimed that the junta troops were accompanied by Rohingya conscripts. The Myanmar army has been forcibly recruiting Rohingya people in Rakhine State in a possible bid to deflect blame from themselves onto a marginalised minority group. Rights activists have also alleged that the military uses the Rohingya men pressed into service as human shields. Buthidaung is home to a large Rohingya population, including many people displaced by a military-supported ethnic cleansing campaign targeting religious minorities that peaked several years before the 2021 military coup. The MSF is the only aid organisation providing medical care for displaced people in some areas of Rakhine State, especially Rohingya people. Military authorities do not recognise the Rohingya as citizens and have deprived them of freedom of movement and other rights afforded to most Myanmar nationals. “The burning down of MSF’s office and pharmacy is just the latest blow to what is a decimation of available healthcare options for people in Rakhine State,” the organisation said on its website. Civilians’ difficulty in accessing medical care, food, and other necessities has been aggravated by the escalating violence in Rakhine State, and in turn by the Myanmar military’s restrictions on overland and maritime travel throughout the state amid the ongoing clashes. The number of outpatient consultations that the MSF offered in Rakhine State reportedly dropped from 6,684 in September 2023 to just over 80 in March of this year. As the war spread to Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships in March, the two local hospitals to which MSF most often referred its patients were among the medical facilities that suspended operations, MSF said, adding that the closure left more than a million people with no options for emergency or preventive healthcare. Fighting between the military and the AA resumed in mid-November after a yearlong ceasefire, with the AA ultimately seizing Chin State’s Paletwa Township, eight townships in Rakhine State, and dozens of army outposts on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and throughout Rakhine State. The clashes have escalated in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships as more towns and junta bases in northern Rakhine State fell under the control of the AA, which is also currently fighting to capture Ann Township in southern Rakhine State. The targeting of health facilities, and conditions forcing their closure or hindering people’s access to them, are “unacceptable”, MSF’s statement said.

Fire destroys Doctors Without Borders facility in northern Rakhine State

Local sources say junta forces—who have been fighting the Arakan Army in the same area—started fires that spread to the international medical aid organisation’s premises, destroying equipment and medicines

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