Junta shuts down Rakhine coastal waterways after fighting on Ramree Island

Following battles on Ramree (Yanbye) Island in southern Rakhine State’s Kyaukphyu Township, the military regime has ordered that the township’s beaches and ports stay closed for an additional two months. The general administration department, part of the military-controlled ministry of home affairs, issued an order on Tuesday to extend the closure of the beaches and ports until February 19. The order includes a general ban on fishing, dropping anchor, or sailing in the Than Zit River or the coastal waters off Kyaukphyu Township, including Ramree Island for 24 hours a day. It will affect ports and beaches in more than fifteen wards and village tracts in the township. Clashes have intensified in Rakhine State since late October when the Brotherhood Alliance, a bloc of three ethnic armed organisations including the Arakan Army (AA), initiated the coordinated Operation 1027 offensive against the military, which is still ongoing in and near northern Shan State. The AA has also seized a number of junta bases in Rakhine State and the neighbouring Paletwa Township, Chin State, where most of its active forces operate. On Monday, the fighting reached the town of Ramree in the central part of the island. The island is the starting point of a pipeline used to move oil and gas to China’s Yunnan Province, and is used by junta naval personnel and other forces as a base. The nearby Maday Island, also part of Kyaukphyu Township, is the location of a port used by a Chinese state-owned company’s ships for unloading crude oil and is the starting point of another pipeline. In response to the closure order, the AA issued a public statement on Tuesday accusing the junta of deliberately cutting off the supply of food, medicine, and other commodities to the area to create shortages. The statement also addressed regime officials’ recent allegations that the AA was involved in the trafficking of some 50 million kyat worth of illegal narcotics shipments that had recently been intercepted in Yangon Region and Shan State, dismissing the claims as smears. The AA also alleged that military regime officials were involved in the illegal drug shipments themselves, and that they had been taking kickbacks from the criminal organisations running illegal gambling and scam centres in Myanmar’s border areas.

Junta shuts down Rakhine coastal waterways after fighting on Ramree Island

The military-controlled general administration department ordered the closures following clashes between the Arakan Army and junta forces near the starting point of a pipeline used to pump oil and gas to China

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