Over 500 IDPs in Ponnagyun Twsp displacement camp return home

By Admin 03 Mar 2023

DMG Newsroom
3 March 2023, Ponnagyun

A total of 532 internally displaced people (IDPs) at a camp in a Ponnagyun Township industrial zone reportedly returned home on Friday morning.

Each household was provided with K600,000 and food supplies for one month by the military council, according to camp officials.

 “The regime officials provided each IDP with K9,000 [additionally] to buy rice,” said Ko Than Htay, the camp manager. “The regime officials said they would provide us with cash instead of rice for three months. Among those providing the IDPs with cash assistance were police, junta soldiers and employees from the General Administration Department.”

The IDPs are from villages such as Thazi, Kyaukseik, Peinhnetaw and Doe Tan in Ponnagyun Township, as well as Hnamadar Village in Chin State’s Paletwa Township, who were displaced by fighting between the military and Arakan Army (AA) in April 2019.

 An IDP from Thazi Village said that he decided to return home because he was living in a difficult situation without receiving food supplies in the displacement camp.

“Even if we were to stay here, we would never get food support from the government,” he added.

Junta-appointed ministers visited the displacement camp twice last month to ask the IDPs to return home, according to the IDPs.

The IDPs have requested that the military clear landmines and help them to repair their homes, but the regime has not said that they will do so.

“Our homes in the village have completely deteriorated after being uninhabited for a long time,” said Ma Khin Soe Nwe, an IDP woman from Kyaukseik Village in Ponnagyun Township. “That’s why we asked the military regime to repair our homes and clear landmines.”

More than 2,000 IDPs taking shelter at a displacement camp in Minbya town returned to their homes on February 23 after the regime gave them K500,000 per household and told them to return home.

The total number of IDPs in Arakan State, including those who remain at displacement camps due to 2018-2020 fighting between the military and Arakan Army, stood at about 90,000 early this year, according to a January 11 report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

The military regime has said that there are more than 60,000 IDPs in Arakan State who cannot yet return home.