Paletwa Twsp villagers flee to India border following junta air raids

By DMG 02 Sep 2022

DMG Newsroom
2 September 2022, Paletwa

Air attacks by Myanmar’s military regime have forced almost all 500 residents of Myeikwa village in Chin State’s Paletwa Township to flee to the Indian border.

The Arakan Army (AA) reported on Friday that it clashed with junta soldiers some 500 metres west of Myeikwa village on Wednesday. Regime troops then fired artillery shells from a hill near the village and dropped bombs from helicopters, forcing villagers to flee to the border, a Paletwa resident told DMG.

“We heard clashes happened on the hill near Myeikwa village. There is a military outpost on the hill. They fired artillery shells from that mountain onto the village, which frightened villagers and prompted them to flee to the border,” he said.

The AA also shared a video file ostensibly showing Myeikwa villagers fleeing to the border following the junta artillery and air strikes.

DMG was unable to contact junta spokesman Major-General Zaw Min Tun for comment on the AA’s allegations of junta air raids.

Myeikwa village is home to more than 100 households with over 500 residents.

“We had a fierce clash with the Myanmar military near the Indian border in Paletwa, and we have been engaged in active fighting near Namada village,” AA spokesman U Khaing Thukha told DMG on Thursday.

More than 5,000 people displaced by some two years of fighting between the military and Arakan Army from 2018 to 2020 remain at displacement camps in Paletwa town, and some 1,000 residents of Abaungtha, Namada, Yemawa, Tonemawa and Kyetkaingyet villages have recently fled to Paletwa town.

U Zarni, who has been helping internally displaced people (IDPs) in Paletwa, said: “There are around 6,000 displaced people now, and more are coming. So we have difficulties.”

Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army reached an informal ceasefire agreement ahead of the country’s November 2020 general election, after some two years of often-intense fighting in Arakan State and neighbouring Paletwa Township, Chin State. But the peace pact has verged on total collapse for weeks amid months of escalating military tensions and a series of clashes between the two sides across multiple Arakan State townships, and in Paletwa Township.