Five forcibly recruited Rohingya men killed in battle in Rakhine State

Five displaced Rohingya men were killed and 10 injured in battle after being pressed into service by the army from internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps in and near Sittwe, a source familiar with the matter told Myanmar Now on Thursday. The young men—who became casualties of the ongoing clashes between army troops and the Arakan Army (AA) in Rathedaung Township, Rakhine State—were among at least 97 IDPs whom the army had forcibly recruited from camps in and near the state capital of Sittwe, according to the same source, a Sittwe Township resident who uses the alias Wai Yan to protect his identity. “Out of around 100 Rohingya youths, five were killed in action and ten are getting treatment for severe injuries at the Sittwe military hospital,” Wai Yan said. He added that the status of the remaining Rohingya recruits from the camps is unknown, but the most recent available information indicates they are still at the battle lines in Rathedaung Township. Among the five recruits who were killed, there was one each from five IDP camps in Sittwe Township: the Maw Tin Nya camp, Thet Kay Pyin camp, Baw Du Pha-1 camp, Ohn Taw Gyi camp, and Say Tha Mar Gyi camp, according to Wai Yan. Apart from those killed in battle, it is unclear from which camps the army has forcibly recruited young men or exactly when they were taken, he said. Aung Kyaw Moe, a deputy human rights minister for the publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG)—a cabinet formed and endorsed by deposed civilian leaders to oppose military rule in Myanmar after the 2021 coup—told Myanmar Now on Thursday that the army had returned the body of one of the slain recruits to the camp where he lived. “One dead body of a 25-year-old from Thet Kay Pyin camp was handed over to the community leader today,” Aung Kyaw Moe said. In a post on the social media platform X—formerly Twitter—Aung Kyaw Moe said that regime officials had offered to pay a million kyat (US $470) and two bags of rice to the deceased men’s surviving relatives, and issued instructions to come retrieve their remains. “SAC also mentioned to go with them to take more dead bodies,” Aung Kyaw Moe said, referring to the junta by a self-applied acronym that stands for State Administrative Council. “But community leaders are afraid so they didn’t go.” He alleged that the military was using Rohingya people “as human shields” and was in clear violation of international humanitarian law, as well as provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague. The provisional measures are in place due to an ongoing probe into the mass persecution, displacement, and slaughter of Rohingya people in Rakhine State after The Gambia, later joined by other nations, lodged a case against Myanmar for genocide at the ICJ in 2019. Aung Kyaw Moe also said on Thursday that many more forcibly recruited Rohingya people had likely been killed in combat but acknowledged that numbers are especially difficult to verify since the junta cut off phone and internet communications in Rathedaung Township and other parts of Rakhine State. Details about ongoing battles in Rakhine State have remained obscure since the Myanmar junta blocked phone reception, internet connections, and roads into the state. However, according to reports from local news outlets, clashes have intensified in the area amid the AA’s assaults on military outposts and attempts to take control of Rathedaung and other townships north of Sittwe. Wai Yan said two of the slain recruits’ bodies had been buried in Ye Chan Pyin Muslim cemetery and the Hman Zi cemetery in Sittwe, but that he did not have information on the other three. Junta officials did not allow family members, or anyone other than the Muslim volunteers from the cemetery who buried them, to see the two bodies, according to Wai Yan. He confirmed that the officials had offered to compensate the young men’s bereaved families with two bags of rice and a sum of money, and that they had demanded on Thursday that camp managers find more Rohingya people to undergo military training. The military regime was already known to be forcing people from internally displaced persons’ camps into military service elsewhere in the state. Some 50 miles southeast of Sittwe, residents of the Kyauktalone displaced persons’ camp in Kyaukphyu Township, which is home to both Kaman Muslim and Rohingya IDPs, junta officials and soldiers rounded up around 127 young people—including five under 18 years old—and forced them to undergo basic military training, camp residents said. When some young people fled the camp to escape the forced training, junta officials reportedly detained their family members, whose status and whereabouts since their arrest are unknown. The AA—Rakhine State’s largest and most powerful ethnic armed organisation—has been fighting against junta forces since November, ending a previous temporary ceasefire that had been in force for nearly a year. The AA has pledged to fight until all the Myanmar military’s remaining outposts are eliminated in the state. Along with Paletwa Township in southern Chin State, the AA has taken full control of seven Rakhine State towns, most recently the town of Ramree just south of Kyaukphyu. Since overthrowing the elected civilian government led by the National League for Democracy party in 2021, the Myanmar junta has been fighting a war on several fronts throughout the country against ethnic armed organisations and anti-coup resistance groups. Increasingly desperate for manpower, the military regime announced in February that it would begin enforcing a decade-old conscription law requiring young people of eligible age to serve in the military. The first batch of 5,000 recruits is scheduled to begin training in April according to junta spokesperson Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun. The junta spokesperson has also denied that the regime is engaged in forced recruitment of displaced people, contrary to accounts from the IDP camps and video footage on social media showing young men appearing to speak Rohingya while undergoing training in military facilities.

Five forcibly recruited Rohingya men killed in battle in Rakhine State

An NUG official alleged that the junta is violating international humanitarian law, using young Rohingya men as ‘human shields’ in battles against the AA after rounding them up from displaced persons’ camps in Rakhine State

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