Junta evicts nearly 400 households in Manaung Twsp village

By Admin 18 Apr 2024

DMG Newsroom
18 April 2024, Manaung

The military regime has ordered nearly 400 households in Ngatpyawtaw and Anaukpar wards in Thitpone Village in Arakan State’s Manaung Township to relocate by April 25.

Around 20 soldiers from a junta outpost near Pyinkauk Village came to Thitpone Village on Thursday and issued the eviction notice, a source told DMG.

“The residents were told to move away as of today. I heard that they told the villagers that the [eviction] order came from Naypyidaw as a punishment for supporting the AA [Arakha Army],” the source told DMG.

Another resident said: “The administrator was summoned to the village police station. Then the administrator told residents that the two wards must be vacated, and residents must move away gradually. Twenty households were told to move away today.”

Thitpone Village is made up of four wards: Ngapyawtaw, Kunthitaw, Palintaw and Anaukpar, with a total of around 800 households. Some 240 houses from Ngapyawtaw and around 140 households from Anaukpar were told to relocate to Panchan and Phetyar villages about 10 miles north of Thitpone Village.

“Residents are crying. The village abbot has left to beg the authorities. The new place is very far. There are few sources of livelihoods there, and water is also scarce there,” said a resident of Thitpone Village.

Junta soldiers also said they would make headcounts in the village against the household registration certificates, and that absentees whose whereabouts couldn’t be properly explained would be labelled fugitives, said residents.

Farming and fishing are the main sources of livelihoods in Thitpone Village. Junta soldiers also came to the village on April 7, and threatened that they would harm the village should residents have ties with the AA.

Though there is no active fighting between the regime and the AA in Manaung, junta troops have been travelling from one village to another, persuading and coercing civilians into submitting to the military draft.