Myanmar junta evacuates villages in Rakhine Yoma foothills as anti-regime fighters advance

Villagers living near the Rakhine Yoma mountains said this week that regime forces, anticipating an invasion of Ayeyarwady Region by the ethnic armed organisation Arakan Army (AA), had ordered them to leave their homes by last Sunday. The military’s evacuation order reportedly applied to more than 300 households in 20 villages at the base of the mountain range in Ayeyarwady Region’s Yegyi Township and Rakhine State’s Gwa Township. The junta appears to be clearing these villages on the border between Rakhine State and Ayeyarwady Region to fend off a potential invasion of Ayeyarwady Region by AA forces based in Rakhine State. A resident of Pathein, Ayeyarwady Region’s capital, believed that the evacuation was motivated by the junta’s fears of the AA. “Security in urban areas is unchanged, with patrols conducted by personnel in both military uniforms and civilian clothing,” he said. “The evacuation of villages near the Rakhine border must be aimed at preventing the advance of AA troops.” Since hearing of the orders, locals have fled the area around the Rakhine State-Ayeyarwady Region border in massive numbers. Some told Arakan Princess Media, a local outlet associated with the AA, that they feared the military would send warplanes to bomb their villages if they refused to leave. “Families living near the Rakhine Yoma who were cutting down trees have been ordered to evacuate. Another group of households that had been grouped together to form a village is also affected by the order,” a man from the area said. “So are villages like Saw Pyar, which is also adjacent to the Yoma.” He noted that, due to a scarcity of vehicles capable of carrying furniture, many Yegyi Township residents have been forced to take only what they could carry on foot or motorcycles as they relocated. A displaced civilian from Rakhine State’s Gwa Township predicted that the evacuation would crowd the roads and paths through the forest near the villages, also often used by people displaced from Rakhine State, causing delays and creating more difficulties for displaced people in the area. “The order to evacuate villages near the Yoma will make it much harder for the displaced to get through,” the displaced Rakhine State resident said. The present clearing of the Rakhine Yoma villages is not the first such evacuation carried out by the military junta on a strategic pretext. In January of this year, the military forced locals to leave as they deployed troops to villages outside of the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe, bolstering their defences ahead of an anticipated attempt by AA forces based in neighbouring Ponnagyun Township to take the city. Residents of at least 10 villages surrounding Sittwe fled after junta troops threatened to destroy whole villages with artillery and arson attacks. Although regime forces are currently reinforcing their defences in Ayeyarwady Region, it has seen virtually no violence compared with Rakhine State and other disputed parts of the country. “We heard that villagers near the Yoma have been told to evacuate, but our village is not affected,” said a woman from Ayeyarwady Region’s Kyonpyaw Township currently working in Naypyitaw. She joked that if the war reached her home village and forced the inhabitants to evacuate, there would likely be nowhere left for them to go. “If we were ordered to leave, we’d have to live in the river,” she joked. The junta council has prohibited the import of goods, including food, from Rakhine State and has only allowed displaced people from Gwa Township to enter Ayeyarwady Region if they could present valid identification and other documents. Reports have indicated that junta security forces are extorting bribes from those without the necessary documents. Gwa Township, the origin of most of the displaced people fleeing into neighbouring Ayeyarwady Region, was estimated to have a population of more than 65,000 in 2019. Fighting between the AA and junta troops has recently escalated in the town of Maungdaw on the Bangladeshi border; the town of Ann, which is the site of the military’s Western Regional Military Command headquarters; and Gwa Township, the southernmost township in the state. As clashes intensified this month in the Rakhine Yoma near Gwa Township’s Ku Toet Lay village, local media reported that the junta had conducted airstrikes in residential areas on October 12, killing a woman and two other local civilians. The junta air force has also recently intensified bombing raids targeting Taungup Township as well as Ann and Maungdaw. The AA has publicly declared that its goal is to take full territorial control of Rakhine State. Since restarting offensive operations against the Myanmar military almost one year ago, the group has captured ten of the state’s seventeen townships as well as neighbouring Paletwa Township in Chin State.

Myanmar junta evacuates villages in Rakhine Yoma foothills as anti-regime fighters advance

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