Abducted ALD official not heard from in a week: family

By DMG 04 Jul 2021

DMG Newsroom
4 July 2021, Sittwe 

A week has passed since an Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) committeeman was abducted by an unidentified group of armed men in Sittwe, with family saying they have not heard from the captive or his captors since he went missing on June 28.  

U Zaw Win Tun, chairman of an interim organising committee for the ALD, was abducted last month by six people in civilian clothes who bundled him into a white car in front of an elementary school in Sittwe’s Ohe Tan ward after he dropped his daughter off at the school. 

“We have not been in contact with him so far because we don’t know his whereabouts. I want to know where my brother was taken and who took him away,” said Ko Tun Lin, the abductee’s younger brother. “He also has high blood pressure and a heart disease. Although my brother’s family members were not threatened, I am worried about his safety.” 

U Zaw Win Tun is a father of two, with a fourth grade daughter and a 1-month-old son.  

The Arakan State capital has seen a rise in high-profile criminality of late: An unidentified group of armed men detained U Aye Tun aka Aye Tun Bu in Kone Tan ward on May 29, and he too has not yet been released. 

Meanwhile, 52-year-old U Nyunt Soe Aung was shot dead by an unidentified group of gunmen in Sittwe’s Ywar Gyi Mrauk ward on June 19. 

“We want justice for the assassination of U Nyunt Soe Aung. We can do nothing because he has already been killed,” Daw Hla Yee, the sister-in-law of U Nyunt Soe Aung, told DMG. 

U Soe Naing, a Sittwe resident, said there were concerns about the recent abductions and shootings in the Arakan State capital. 

“The current arrests look like a slight lack of rule of law in Sittwe. With this weak form of the rule of law, we have concerns about security,” he said. 

U Zaw Win Tun has been active in Arakan State politics for years, with roles on committees for the ALD and the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), as well as time spent as a member of the Arakan National Party (ANP) before resigning from it to form the Arakan Patriotic Party (APP). 

He disbanded the APP in 2019, however, and is currently serving as interim chairman of the Sittwe Township organising committee of the ALD.