Child casualties rising in latest Arakan State hostilities

By Admin 02 Dec 2023

DMG Newsroom
2 December 2023, Sittwe

Child casualties have been on the rise in Arakan State due to the junta’s indiscriminate shelling and small arms fire following renewed hostilities between the military and Arakan Army (AA), which began on November 13.

At least 15 child casualties, including three fatalities, have been reported to date in Arakan State over the first 20 days of the latest hostilities between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army, according to a DMG tally.

The three deaths included two in Buthidaung Township and one in Mrauk-U Township. Among the injured are 10 people from Minbya Township, two from Buthidaung Township and one each from Kyauktaw, Myebon and Ann townships.

“The military and the Arakan Army fight each other. Targeting people like this is not good,” said a family member of an injured child in Wahcheelah Village, Maungdaw Township.

Two mortar shells fired by the military’s Buthidaung-based Light Infantry Battalion No. 565 fell near Wahcheelah Village on November 27, killing three people working on a pepper farm and injuring six others. Among the injured are two children.

Children are suffering psychologically and physically from the sounds of gunfire, and as they flee their homes with their families, they are deprived of adequate food and education opportunities.

“My children sustained gunshot wounds. My wife succumbed to shrapnel wounds. I don’t know how to survive,” said a local man from Hsingyipyin Village in Minbya Township.

Four people were killed and 10 others were injured when three artillery shells fired by junta troops stationed at Kyein Taung Pagoda in Minbya landed and exploded in Hsingyipyin Village on November 14. Among the injured are four children.

Locals have accused junta troops of committing war crimes by purposefully attacking towns and villages in Arakan State with heavy weapons and small arms as well as helicopters and drones, often without any fighting with the Arakan Army in the vicinity, locals said.

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. Junta troops stationed at Tin Nyo police station test-fired artillery on November 14. The following day, they abandoned the police station. Residents then reportedly discovered materials used to calculate firing data.

Children in areas of armed conflict in Myanmar are deprived of their rights under the Child Rights Law.

“If there is an armed conflict, children and adults are all affected by the battle. However, in order to protect children’s rights and prevent fear from entering children’s minds, if there is a war, we would like to ask armed groups not to target children and [civilian] adults,” said an official from an Arakan State-based civil society organisation.

Myanmar signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on August 15, 1991.

The Child Rights Law states that children have many rights such as survival, development, protection and participation in society.