Fighting intensifies in Maungdaw

By Admin 06 Aug 2024

DMG Newsroom
6 August 2024, Maungdaw

Fighting has been raging in and around Maungdaw Town for nearly two months since the Arakkha Army (AA) launched an onslaught on junta positions in the frontier town at the Bangladesh border on June 16.

The AA attacked junta positions from the north, south and east of Maungdaw Township. It has surrounded Maungdaw Town after seizing other junta positions.

Fighting escalated on Tuesday morning, said a source.

“Fighting escalated this morning. Clashes are also taking place in the town. The regime is firing a heavy barrage,” said a resident.

The junta’s Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 in Myo Thugyi Ward has been conducting artillery barrages to ward off the AA’s advances, causing civilian casualties daily, said residents.

The regime retaliated with air and artillery strikes after the AA captured junta troops deployed at Shwe Zarr Bridge on August 3. A schoolteacher in No. 4 Ward was killed, and her son injured in the junta response.

“That day a shell fired by Border Guard Police Battalion 5 landed on the street outside the hospital. A schoolteacher died and her son was injured,” said a Maungdaw resident.

Some Muslim residents in Maungdaw were also reportedly killed by junta artillery strikes on Monday. Details are still largely unknown.

Junta soldiers and allied Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) members arrested trapped civilians in Maungdaw Town.

Senior RSO leaders fled Maungdaw on Saturday, according to Muslim sources.

One political analyst said: “The Maungdaw battle is more complicated than other towns, particularly because Muslim armed groups are fighting alongside the regime. Both sides have to exercise restraint as Muslims, Arakanese and Hindu people are trapped in the town, and to make sure shells do not land on Bangladeshi territory.”

Maungdaw is home to the Kanyin Chaung economic zone, used for official border trade between Myanmar and Bangladesh. The town provides a crucial source of foreign currency income for the regime.