Displaced Byaing Phyu villagers going hungry at Sittwe monasteries

By Admin 05 Jun 2024

DMG Newsroom
5 June 2024, Sittwe

More than 1,500 residents who were forcibly moved from Byaing Phyu Village to Sittwe town after a recent massacre in the former are going hungry.

The Byaing Phyu villagers were forced out of their village on May 30 and 31. A total of 1,588 displaced villagers are taking shelter at seven monasteries in Sittwe town. The majority of them are children, women, and elderly people.

“We can only wait for food sent by donors. We get a lot of rice in the morning, but we receive only a little in the evening. We share what we get,” said a woman from Byaing Phyu.

Around 170 junta troops, members of Arakan Liberation Party/Arakan Liberation Army and Muslim conscripts raided Byaing Phyu Village on May 29, detaining anyone they could find, including children.

They allegedly slaughtered dozens of men and raped some women. According to the latest report from the Arakkha Army (AA), a total of 76 civilians were killed in the massacre in Byaing Phyu.

Junta soldiers also abducted hundreds of men and took the women, children and elderly to Wingabar field in Sittwe town, where they told them not to return to their village, prompting them to take shelter at the monasteries.

Junta troops also looted everything valuable from the villagers, said another woman from Byaing Phyu.

The majority of residents in Byaing Phyu are low-income families who cannot afford to flee the growing threat of fighting in Sittwe.

“We don’t have money to go somewhere else. But we are already going hungry here. And I have children and parents to take care of. I dread thinking about how to get through this. And people will not dare to come to help,” said the woman from Byaing Phyu.

Residents of Sittwe are worried about their safety following the Byaing Phyu Village massacre, fearing that a similar incident could play out elsewhere.

Both the regime and the ALP have denied massacring civilians in Byaing Phyu.