Myanmar military escalating air and artillery strikes in Kyaukphyu, locals say

Personal names have been changed in this article to protect our sources’ security. The Myanmar military intensified its bombing campaign on Rakhine State’s Ramree Island this week, carrying out harder strikes, more frequent attacks near Kyaukphyu, the site of multibillion-dollar development projects with heavy foreign investment. Kyaukphyu, located at the northernmost point of Ramree Island on Rakhine State’s Bay of Bengal coast, is the starting point of pipelines that transport natural gas from offshore fields to refineries in China. It is also the centre of the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ), an area designated for a major commercial development project ultimately intended to include ports, bridges, and roads for carrying imported goods inland. The Kyaukphyu SEZ is a joint venture in which the Chinese state-owned conglomerate China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) Group owns a 70 percent stake. As in most of Rakhine State’s townships, the Myanmar junta is struggling to maintain its power in Kyaukphyu and the neighbouring township of Ramree—another town on the same island some forty miles to the south—due to recent advances made by the Arakan Army (AA) as part of an anti-junta offensive launched in November. Five major towns in northern Rakhine State—as well as the neighbouring town of Paletwa, Chin State—have now fallen under the AA’s full control. On Tuesday, the junta escalated its attacks on Ramree Island, carrying out airstrikes on Ku Lar Bar and other villages south of Kyaukphyu and forcing hundreds of civilians to flee their homes. “My wife and I were at home sitting and chatting. Around 3pm, a fighter jet came suddenly and started dropping bombs,” a villager from Ku Lar Bar told Myanmar Now. There were too many bombs dropped to count, he added. Not only this, but at the same time heavy artillery from at least four different nearby bases began pounding the area with shells relentlessly. “It was frightening. We ran for safety, and my wife almost didn’t make it to the ditch,” he said. “We have never seen anything like this in our lives. It feels like we are cursed to live through a dark time.” As most people with young children and elderly family members ran to a safer place, Hla Tun, 67, stayed in his village. He said he was watching out for thieves who might take advantage of displaced families in desperate conditions, breaking into their homes after they fled. “The situation is bad. The artillery shelling just stopped around 5pm, but it started this morning at around 11am,” Hla Tun told Myanmar Now on Wednesday. “A fighter jet also went cruising over the village twice today,” Hla Tun added. “They were practically pouring out bombs yesterday but didn’t drop any today.” He said if it were not for other obligations, he would have taken up arms against the Myanmar junta himself. “I wish I could get a gun and shoot them because these injustices anger me,” he said. “If I didn’t need to look after my family, I would have gotten a gun and joined the AA.” There had been fighting and shelling all day long on Wednesday, another Ku Lar Bar villager said. “I only just came out of the ditch where I was sheltering to cook something to eat,” he told Myanmar Now around 5pm that evening. Since all the people have left, the village is in chaos now, he said. Animals and cows are roaming around unattended, and running every which way whenever they hear another shell. “All the animals are in a panic,” he said. “One of my cows is so frightened by the shelling that she’s stopped eating.” Although he volunteered to stay behind as a watchman for his village, Hla Tun said he knows he is at the epicentre of the fighting and his village could be reduced to ashes at any time. “Whenever I hear the sound of a fighter jet, I run out to a ditch and hide there,” Hla Tun said. “If things get worse, I will leave too.” “But all I want to say is that we want peace. We don’t want to live in a time where we can never sleep, day or night,” he added. Along with dozens of junta bases including border guard outposts on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, the Rakhine State towns of Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Minbya, and Pauktaw have fallen under the AA’s control since the offensive began. In another recent victory, the AA announced on Wednesday that they had taken several high-ranking army officers prisoner after sinking a junta warship on the Kaladan River in Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township the previous week. The captured officers reportedly included two brigadier generals. The major anti-junta offensive launched by the AA in November was planned in coordination with the Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027, which began less than three weeks earlier in northern Shan State. The AA is one of the three members of the Brotherhood Alliance, along with its Shan State-based allies, the ethnically Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the ethnically Palaung Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA). The Brotherhood Alliance agreed to a Chinese government-mediated, provisional ceasefire with the Myanmar junta in northern Shan State in January, but the AA has not ceased its operations against the military in Rakhine and Chin states.

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