IDPs in Kyauktaw losing land lease arrangement 

By Admin 16 Dec 2024

DMG Newsroom
16 December 2024, Mrauk-U

Internally displaced people (IDPs) taking shelter in Arakan State’s Kyauktaw Township are struggling to find a new place to stay after they were told by their landlords to vacate by the end of this month.

They have been renting land from two landowners in Wartaung Village, but the land owners told them that they would no longer lease the land after December.

More than 200 households, totaling about 2,000 people from some eight villages upstream of Yoechaung Creek, sought refuge in Wartaung Village after they were displaced by fighting in 2018, building a displacement camp on land rented from two locals.

“The landowners are evicting us,” said one woman from the Wartaung displacement camp. “Our village is located in a remote location, far from hospitals and clinics, and there are almost no sources of livelihoods. Transportation is also difficult. So we want to continue staying here.”

Many moved to the Taungmin Kalar displacement camp in April 2023, but around 300 people from 100 households, mostly ethnic Mro families, remain in the Wartaung displacement camp.

A Wartaung villager said: “The owners want to use their lands for other purposes and can’t rent to them anymore. And the displaced people can go home now. There is no more fighting in their area.”

Many displaced people want to remain at the Wartaung camp due to better access to education and healthcare services compared to their villages.

One displaced man explained: “Here in Wartaung, there is a basic education high school in nearby Kansauk Village. In our village, we will have to incur large sums if we are to send our children to the town to continue studying. So, we want to stay here.”

The displaced people have had to pay a total of 2.5 million kyats per year for five acres to the the land owners, at the rate of 500,00 kyats per acre.

Without any assistance from donors and social organisations, displaced people in Wartaung camp have to do casual jobs to earn barely enough to pay the rent and feed themselves.