Longstanding Sittwe beach eateries told to pack up shop

By Admin 14 Aug 2023

DMG Newsroom
14 August 2023, Sittwe

The Sittwe Township municipal committee has told 16 eateries along the main beach in the Arakan State capital to vacate by August 26, according to some of the eateries’ owners.

Eatery owners were summoned to the township municipality on Saturday, and the eviction notices were issued on Sunday.

“We were told that executives of the municipality wanted to hold a meeting with us. When we attended that meeting, we were told to leave within two weeks,” said eatery owner U Bo Bo Naing.

The eviction notice states that the eateries are squatting on the beach, and that they have built permanent structures there without permission. The notice warns that the shops will be bulldozed if their owners fail to remove them by the deadline, and that legal action will be taken against noncompliant shop owners.

“They told us that they would use machinery if we refuse to leave. This is not what authorities should say. We did nothing wrong to them. We are just working honestly to earn a living,” said Daw May Zu Thin, owner of Global Restaurant.

When asked by DMG, deputy director U Kyaw Moe of the Sittwe municipality said the shops in question are a blight on the appearance of the city, and thus were instructed to vacate the premises in line with municipal law.

“There have been many people squatting on roads in this city. We are just performing our duty of ensuring the city is clean and beautiful,” said U Kyaw Moe.

The allegedly squatting eatery owners, however, claim that their shops were opened at the urging of former Arakan State chief minister U Maung Maung Oo of the previous U Thein Sein government, who had hoped that such eateries would attract more visitors to the beach.

“Under U Maung Maung Ohh, we were given permission to run eateries there. We had to draw lots to decide who should get which shop spaces,” said eatery owner Daw Khin Hla Yi.

Eatery owners have asked the municipality to arrange a new location for them as having to remove their shops from the beach will deal a major, potentially debilitating blow to their bottom lines. 

In 2021, more than 20 shops near the bus terminal outside Sittwe were forcibly removed. In 2019, authorities also forcibly removed more than 70 shops near Sittwe No. 1 Police Station and seven shops outside the Information and Public Relations Department, saying a fence would be built to tighten security.