Myanmar junta deploys drones, bombs as fighting nears naval base in Kyaukphyu

Junta forces continued to launch drone strikes and other aerial assaults on Monday near the junta naval base in Kyaukpyu Township, a coastal area of Rakhine State that has attracted heavy investment from China, according to local residents and media outlets. Clashes between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army (AA) have continued for days near the base, located on the north side of Ramree (Yanbye) Island, around ten miles by road from the junta-controlled town of Kyaukphyu, according to people displaced by the fighting. “There is no fighting inside the town yet but it’s very near,” a man from Kyaukphyu said. At least six villages located near the naval headquarters are now engulfed by the spreading area of battle.Locals said many villagers, anticipating what was to come, had already fled their houses before the fighting began in February, but some remain trapped and threatened by the possibility of imminent clashes. Scenes from Kat Tha Pyay village show the damage left by junta drone strikes on Monday (Photos: Arakan Princess Media)“Civilians from Sit Taw village are not allowed to leave as it is located on the premises of the military’s naval headquarters,” a local man said.For now, however, the villages nearest to the base have been spared. “Fighting hasn’t reached near the junta navy headquarters. It’s taking place within the nearby villages,” a source close to the Arakan Army said.A junta drone strike injured a man and damaged at least 20 houses in Kat Tha Pyay village, around four miles southwest of the naval headquarters on Monday, according to Arakan Princess Media, a news outlet affiliated with the Arakan Army.Earlier that day, a vacant hospital in the town of Sa Ne, 38 miles from Kyaukphyu by road, was damaged in a separate drone attack.At least 35 houses in Kyet Tein Village, around seven miles southeast of Kat Tha Pyay village, had also burned down after junta airstrikes the previous Friday.Meanwhile, a third of Kyaukphyu’s residents are trapped inside the town’s urban wards, as civilians are not allowed to move freely through the town’s entrance near the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 542 base, a displaced man said. “We have to pay around 400,000 kyat (US $190) at the checkpoint to enter the town so we can catch a flight out of the Kyaukphyu airport,” a displaced man from Kyaukphyu said.The inhabitants of at least twenty villages have fled amid the junta’s drone and aerial strikes targeting AA fighters since the third week of February.Although the regime forces have maintained their defensive position in the urban centre of the township, the rest is effectively under AA control, according to sources close to the AA. The AA has also held Ramree Township on the south side of the island since March 2024.Kyaukphyu Township is the site of major foreign-backed development projects including the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port and Special Economic Zone (SEZ), the 300,000-ton crude oil pipeline project on Maday Island—both dependent on heavy investment from China—as well as ongoing, major offshore natural gas project supported by investment from the South Korean firm POSCO.

Myanmar junta deploys drones, bombs as fighting nears naval base in Kyaukphyu

As the army attempts to fend off assaults by the Arakan Army (AA), some locals have already fled the clashes while others remain trapped

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