The Rakhine Ethnics Congress (REC) is distributing radios to internally displaced people (IDPs) in Arakan State townships with limited access to information amid the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing armed conflict in the region.

The number of eligible voters in Arakan State increased by nearly 4,000 during a recent second round of voter registration efforts, according to the state election subcommission. 

Seven undocumented people who entered Arakan State’s Thandwe Township from Yangon by ambulance were arrested on September 23, according to a source from the district COVID-19 control and response committee. 

Thousands of people in Rathedaung Township were displaced from their homes on September 23 due to military operations in Arakan State, even as COVID-19 infections continue to rise throughout the region and related restrictions on movement remain in effect.

About 20 residents of Thayettapin village in Kyauktaw Township, Arakan State, were arrested by a military column at about 9 a.m. on September 23, according to locals.

Three Arakanese student leaders detained over an anti-government protest earlier this month will be charged under the Peaceful Assembly Law in a legal change from earlier indications that they would be prosecuted using the Natural Disaster Management Law.

Six election signboards for the National League for Democracy (NLD) were destroyed in Arakan State’s Taungup and Myebon townships during the first two weeks of the 2020 general election’s official campaign period, according to NLD members and local residents. 

A female journalist from the Sittwe-based Narinjara News has been diagnosed with COVID-19, an official from the media outlet confirmed on September 22. 

Bowing to local objections, the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Arakan State has taken down one of its campaign signboards in Thitpon village, Manaung Township. 

A total of 431 civil society organisations in Myanmar have sent an open letter to the UN Human Rights Council calling its attention to human rights violations, armed conflicts and dire humanitarian conditions in the country’s ethnic regions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) has increased by thousands in recent weeks due to military operations in Kyauktaw Township, according to a lawmaker and local residents, even as new COVID-19 cases pile up across Arakan State and lockdowns continue. 

Two brothers were reportedly shot near Ngwe Taung Pauk Bridge in Mrauk-U Township, Arakan State, at about 8 p.m. on September 20, according to local residents. 

Residents of Maday Island in Kyaukphyu Township, many of whom depend on the local fishing industry, say they are facing livelihood difficulties as their catches are not fetching a good price at market during the COVID-19 outbreak in Arakan State.

Although the fishing season has ostensibly resumed this year amid the scourge of a recent COVID-19 outbreak, onshore fishermen in the town of Ngapali are struggling to restart their operations, according to businesspeople in the fishing industry.

Fighting flared between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army on September 20 near Kuntaing village in Arakan State’s Buthidaung Township after two landmines exploded there, according to locals.

Overcrowding at camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in downtown Rathedaung, Arakan State, is making it difficult for them to accommodate the arrival of more IDPs.

Sixteen student unions sent an open letter to the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) on September 19 asking it to open special offices to field complaints in locations where human rights violations and civilian casualties are reported due to conflict in Arakan State.

Seven coronavirus patients have been put on oxygen concentrators and one more suspected COVID-19 patient has died in Arakan State, according to doctors.