With few options left, Rohingya people trapped in western Myanmar prepare for the worst

*Myanmar Now has changed or omitted personal names and other identifying information in this text to protect our sources’ security The Arakha Army released a statement in mid-June addressing the mostly Rohingya Muslim inhabitants of Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State, urging them to vacate the area as soon as possible for their own safety. The warning was issued on Sunday, the same date that the Islamic holiday of Eid-al-Adha was to begin at sunset. It came as a shock to the township’s residents, many of whom said they had no way of reaching safety if they had to leave their homes. “I had just come out of prayers when I got a call from my uncle in Maungdaw saying that they had been warned to leave the town,” said Abdul, a young Rohingya man who has been living as a refugee in Bangladesh since 2017. “It was a most important day for Rohingya Muslims, as it is for Muslims around the world. It’s an occasion to come together, talk and forgive each other,” he said, referring to the religious holiday. “It was such disturbing news to hear,” he added. According to UN estimates, tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes in mid-May when the AA, Rakhine State’s largest and most powerful ethnic armed organisation, took control of Buthidaung Township, located adjacent to Maungdaw Township on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. Around 4,000 of the displaced people fled to the Naf River—which forms the border with Bangladesh in that area—while the rest had to stay with relatives living farther from the fighting or set up makeshift shelters in paddy fields.‘Nowhere to go’ According to Abdul, many Rohingya residents of Maungdaw Township have resigned themselves to the danger, expecting a level of violence comparable to what occurred in Buthidaung. “Many Rohingya are afraid but believe it is better to die in their homes than flee elsewhere,” he said. “They have nowhere to go, they told me,” Abdul added, referring to his relatives and others in Maungdaw Township. “So they said they will stay there whether they live or die.” Moreover, according to Abdul, it is unclear whether the many of the Rohingya residents of Maungdaw would even be able to leave town in accordance with the AA’s orders. Junta troops have set up bases inside schools in Maungdaw as well at the entrances around the town’s perimeter, he and other residents said, preventing the Rohingya from leaving. Restrictions on the freedom of movement of Rohingya people—whose status as Myanmar nationals is not recognised by the military regime—also prevented many from fleeing to safety when Cyclone Mocha made landfall in Rakhine State in May of 2023. “We have no place to escape to. It is a severely worrying situation as we are trapped in a battle zone,” another Rohingya man in Maungdaw told Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity. He added that the Bangladeshi government has been trying to slow the movement of Rohingya people into the country, putting one option for escape farther out of reach even as the dire conditions facing them in Myanmar grow worse. Another civilian from Maungdaw named Ali, 32, was able to flee the country despite heightened controls at the borders. He said he recently received a call from his family in Maungdaw, who told him they are under the scrutiny of both the AA and Myanmar military who are fighting for territorial control. Ten members of Ali’s family still live in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. His sister and her husband and children who live in Maungdaw are facing imminent danger as the fighting spreads closer to their home, he said, while other relatives are still recovering from the harrowing violence they experienced in Buthidaung Township last month. “My sister called me saying she had packed her bag in preparation to flee, but many Rohingya are not even listening to the warning,” he said, referring to the AA’s statement. Over 700,000 Rohingya were forced out of Rakhine State amid a wave of ethnically targeted violence that peaked in 2017, which included “clearing operations” by the Myanmar military. These were purportedly intended as retaliation for attacks by a Rohingya militant group on police outposts on the Bangladeshi border. More than a million Rohingya refugees from Rakhine State are still living in the southeast of Bangladesh seven years later, following a series of abortive attempts to repatriate them. The repatriation efforts broke down largely due to authorities’ failure to provide safety guarantees and refugees’ reluctance to face persisting dangers at home. Houses burned, medicine out of reach Besides having no escape in most cases, Rohingya people in Maungdaw are reluctant to leave because they fear their homes will be burned down in the imminent clashes. “The AA only told them to leave, but they did not tell them where to go. On top of that, the junta has threatened to shoot people if they attempt to leave,” said Ali. His family is now staying in a small kitchen in their relatives’ house a few kilometres from Buthidaung because they cannot return to their homes in the town, he said, adding that most civilian homes in Buthidaung have burned down, allegedly at the hands of the AA. The group has denied all accusations of committing arson attacks. Apart from being displaced and trapped in Buthidaung, , according to Ali, many Rohingya with chronic ailments were suffering or even in mortal danger because they could not access medicine or needed treatment. He claimed that a 13-year-old distant cousin of his was dying from an infection after having lost a leg in January when her village was shelled. “She hasn’t had the chance to get proper treatment,” he said. “Her leg is now rotten, getting worse by the day. She’s just waiting for death, and her parents can’t do anything about it.” Ali’s family is just one of many who have been displaced in the area, he said, noting that the only safe refuge for many were remote villages where there are no active civil society or international organisations able to deliver aid.“It saddens me deeply,” Ali said. Rohingya hit hardest in war for Rakhine State When the AA took over Buthidaung Township last month, it was the ninth township the powerful armed group had captured in the state since launching an offensive against Myanmar junta forces last November. The group now has control of Kyauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Pauktaw, Myebon, Ponnagyun, Ramree, and Rathedaung, as well as Paletwa Township in Chin State. It has continued to fight against junta troops for full territorial control of the remaining eight townships, including Maungdaw. In its Sunday statement, the AA claimed to have surrounded all of the Myanmar military’s remaining outposts in Maungdaw, and promised to launch assaults on the remaining junta positions in the township soon. The following day, the junta carried out airstrikes on the majority-Rohingya village of Har Bi, killing two civilians. Fighting broke out at the same time in the villages of Naung Chaung and Padan, according to Aung Kyaw Moe, the deputy human rights minister for the publicly-mandated National Unity Government (NUG). “Residents of Maungdaw Township are trapped as the junta has blocked the road to the town,” Aung Kyaw Moe told Myanmar Now. When the AA released the evacuation warning that coincided with Eid al-Adha, Rohingya residents found themselves without the option to run and no possibility of remaining safe where they were. “The Rohingya don’t know where to run,” Aung Kyaw Moe added. “The start of the rainy season is an additional worry for them. It increases the urgency of humanitarian needs for everyone.” The AA changed its name from the “Arakan Army” to the “Arakha Army” in April, saying the rebrand reflected its commitment to fight for all of Rakhine State’s people, not only the Rakhine Buddhist majority. Food scarcity and the lethal threat of the monsoon Monsoon season began in early June in western Myanmar. The seasonal weather, which usually lasts for around four months, is aggravating the already dire conditions for displaced people in Rakhine State. The storms, cyclones, torrential rain, and flooding that characterise this time of year on the Rakhine State coast can be deadly. In May of 2023, Cyclone Mocha is estimated to have killed more than 400 and caused extensive infrastructural damage in the state capital of Sittwe and elsewhere in Myanmar after making landfall. The Rohingya families living in makeshift shelters and cow-huts in open fields are especially vulnerable, said Ali, , the 32-year-old who has maintained contact with his family after his recent departure from Myanmar. The weather also makes transport more difficult at a time when most of the routes into Rohingya are tightly controlled or blocked by the fighting forces, and food shortages threaten to become a lethal problem. “People are worried the rice will run out in two months. Their utmost concern at the moment is how to get through the rainy season,” Ali said. The ongoing lack of security, health services, food, or shelter—and the AA’s unwillingness or inability to provide them—have made people question the group’s intentions and commitment to humanitarian principles, he added. “What they are most worried about is whether they—both the junta and the AA—want to change the demography of the Rohingya population by permitting this chaos,” he said, alluding to the ethnically targeted mass killing and displacement of 2017. “That’s why I’m resolved to get my family and relatives out of Rakhine State as soon as I can.” In remarks to the United Nations’ (UN) human rights council on Tuesday, Volker Türk, the United Nations (UN) high commissioner for human rights said that the situation in Rakhine State is just one tragic instance of the pain and suffering the military coup has brought to all of Myanmar in recent years. “I urge all parties to prevent the recurrence of the atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017,” he said.

With few options left, Rohingya people trapped in western Myanmar prepare for the worst

The monsoon, which began this month, may add to the potentially lethal threats of ethnically targeted violence, restricted movement, and food scarcity already faced by recently displaced civilians from northern Rakhine State

Subscribe for full access

Sent to die: Myanmar’s conscripts caught between a junta’s war and a nation’s collapse

Magway emerges as key front in junta’s strategy to claw back control of western Myanmar

Beyond the iron bars: Into a broader world of confinement

Burned, beaten, and hunted: Myanmar worker survives alleged torture in Thailand

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

Interra exits Myanmar oil project, selling stake to Chinese-linked firm after sanctions pressure

Myanmar Wanbao says almost all villagers refusing to leave Letpadaung mine site now relocated

Myanmar army chief attacks UN envoy Julie Bishop after criticism at UN meeting

‘Nothing left except death’: Myanmar families grieve huge war toll