Regime forces target civilians, property in Arakan State

By Admin 07 Dec 2023

DMG Newsroom
7 December 2023, Sittwe

The regime has been targeting civilians who are not involved in the fighting in Arakan State, using heavy weapons and small arms fire, and burning homes and food.

Nineteen homes caught fire and a local woman was injured in Manawthiri Village, part of Arakan State’s Pauktaw Township, on December 5 after artillery shells fired by a junta warship landed and exploded in the village. Nearly 200 homes in Yeyoepyin and Khamaungdaw villages in Ponnagyun Township, Arakan State, were burned down by junta soldiers on December 3.

Junta artillery strikes fired by a Myanmar Navy vessel in the Kaladan River reportedly caused a blaze at Myoma Market in Ponnagyun town on November 24 that engulfed more than 300 stalls.

“The regime forces intentionally fired mortar shells into Myoma Market. The regime is targeting non-military areas and destroying people’s socio-economic lives,” said a local man in Ponnagyun.

In downtown Pauktaw, where fighting rages on, all neighbourhoods, including Myoma Market, are on fire due to junta artillery strikes, and the exact damage is still unknown.

“The junta troops have carried out arson attacks at Myoma Market and in five wards in downtown Pauktaw. It is difficult to say the exact amount of public property destroyed by the regime forces. The regime is routinely destroying public property,” said a local man in Pauktaw.

Hundreds of homes, buildings, shops and food items were reduced to ashes in three towns and three villages during the first 20 days of the latest hostilities between the military and Arakan Army (AA).

Materials used to calculate firing data to shell residential areas were discovered, according to local residents, at the junta-controlled Tin Nyo police station in Mrauk-U Township, Arakan State.

“The deliberate targeting of civilians’ lives and homes is a flagrant violation by the regime of the right to life, liberty and security of the individual as stipulated in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said a human rights activist in Arakan State.

Regime leaders and pro-junta social media have been continuously spreading false propaganda and attempting to drive wedges between Arakanese people and the AA.

Junta spokesman Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun said: “I would like to urge [Arakanese people] to carefully consider if it is true that they are really working for Arakanese people and the liberation of Arakan State, as they claim.”

“If armed groups persevere with their mistakes, only local populations will suffer the consequences. So, they should have sympathy for civilians who are bearing the brunt of the fighting. [Armed groups] should not persevere with their mistakes, and there is a need to find political solutions,” said the coup leader Min Aung Hlaing.

Fighting in Arakan State remains oftentimes intense and civilian casualties have been on the rise due largely to the junta’s indiscriminate use of heavy weapons.

A total of 2,005 homes in 48 villages in Arakan State and in Chin State’s Paletwa Township were destroyed during the two-year armed conflict between the military and AA, according to figures compiled by civil society organisations in Arakan State.