Junta expands attacks on Arakan Army and civilians to Thandwe Township

The Myanmar junta’s navy and air force launched attacks on the southern Rakhine State township of Thandwe on Sunday and Monday after a clash broke out on Saturday with the Arakan Army (AA) during the annual Thingyan water festival. “The Myanmar military navy launched artillery shelling first and then the airstrikes followed,” a local said of the assault on the township, which had largely been spared the fighting that has rocked much of the rest of the state in recent months. Most of the shells fired on Monday reportedly exploded in a forest near the village of Gwayt Chaung, nearly 13 miles from Thandwe town, limiting civilian injuries and casualties. The fighting between the junta and the AA on Saturday occurred outside of Gwayt Chaung and lasted for around an hour, according to a man from another nearby village, Wah Nwe Pyin, which was targeted by junta artillery the next day. A Myanmar military shell exploded 200 metres from the village’s monastery on Sunday at around 10:30am, as several dozen people were praying in line with traditional Thingyan observances and were forced to flee the site. The man claimed no one was injured, but noted that local people are “worried about what to do and where to run.” Coastal Thandwe, home to the famous Ngapali beach, is of strategic and personal importance for the junta, and is the birthplace of the wife of military commander Min Aung Hlaing’s wife, Kyu Kyu Hla. With the exception of the state capital of Sittwe, the AA has taken over most of northern Rakhine State, as well as several outposts along the Bangladesh border. The ethnic armed organisation has captured seven townships in the region, as well as Ramree in southern Rakhine and Paletwa in neighbouring Chin State. In its efforts to challenge the AA’s growing influence and territorial gains, the junta has been actively conscripting locals in the townships of Thandwe, Gwa and Manaung. They have also forcibly recruited persecuted Rohingya Muslims from camps in Buthidaung, Sittwe and Kyaukphyu to which they were internally displaced by the military in previous years. On Monday, Radio Free Asia reported that 25 such Rohingya men—presumably conscripts—were killed during fighting between the AA and the military in northern Rakhine’s Buthidaung Township, but Myanmar Now was unable to independently verify the report due to a lack of telecommunication and internet services in the region. Ethnic Rakhine village administrators in Thandwe have protested the recent reactivation of Myanmar’s dormant conscription law, resigning rather than enforcing it. Similar resistance has also been documented in Manaung.

Junta expands attacks on Arakan Army and civilians to Thandwe Township

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