The sound of gunfire, a frequent occurrence in Mrauk-U Township for nearly a year, has not been heard there since a final proposal to designate the former Arakan’s capital, Mrauk-U a UNESCO World Heritage Site was submitted on January 27, residents said.

A 20-year-old resident of Arakan State’s Kyauktaw Township who recently returned from China and was hospitalized with illness less than a week later is not being treated as a coronavirus case, Sittwe General Hospital’s Medical Superintendent Dr. Tun Tun Win told DMG.

Ma Nilarpala, one of its female Hindu residents, told DMG the village is home to more than 1,000 people across 148 households. A single well in the village is insufficient to meet the residents’ needs, she said.

After a Tatmadaw column of more than 100 soldiers left the village, a clash broke out at about 10 a.m. among the hills and fields of an area about a half mile from the village, said a villager who asked not to be named for security reasons.

Citing the poor condition of the Kamar Chaung Bridge along Kyunpat Road in Manaung Township, Arakan State, residents there are requesting that a new bridge be built. They say the existing bridge, used by some 30 villages on the island, has fallen into disrepair beyond salvaging.

Displaced civilians have continued to arrive at the Sa Nyin IDP camp outside the Myebon Township village of the same name, despite a military directive ordering that the camp be dismantled and its inhabitants moved elsewhere. 

Some IDP camps in remote parts of northern Arakan State are reporting food shortages due to lack of aid deliveries, according to officials at the camps.

Amid concerns of a measles outbreak at a village in Arakan State’s Ann Township, a local administrator told DMG on January 31 that more than 30 children out of over 70 showing signs of illness have recovered after receiving medical treatment.

The Arakan State government has said that one-way traffic flow will be introduced on some roads in Sittwe to reduce congestion and improve road safety.

Sittwe’s Traffic Police Force has confirmed that it is offering leniency to motorcycles with unregistered passenger carriages, which have been allowed to ply certain roads with authorities’ understanding in parts of the Arakan State capital.

Among more than 700 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled their homes in four Arakan State townships and have been sheltering in Sittwe for nearly six months, many see little hope for a return anytime soon.

The Anti-Corruption Commission has yet to respond to a complaint against two Arakan State government ministers more than 17 months after it was filed, the complainants said.

More than 200 monks and nuns did not take the Tharmanay Kyaw examination held in the Arakan State capital Sittwe due to the region’s instability, according to the Rakhapura Sasana Alingara Association.

Sittwe University students on January 28 showed their support for a nationwide green-ribbon campaign objecting to a Ministry of Education decision to push back basic education exams to the end of March, effectively extending the academic year by one month.

The number of cases of illness among children at a village in Arakan State’s Ann Township has climbed to more than 70 and blood sample tests are ongoing, according to the state Department of Public Health, as concerns grow of a potential measles outbreak. 

The company’s acting associate director, U Zaw Tun Aung, and driver U Saw Thein Maung were detained by the AA on December 23 when the pair encountered AA troops near Taung Pauk village on the road linking Minbya and Kyauktaw towns.

A final proposal intended to put Mrauk-U on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites was submitted to the Paris-based body on January 27, according to a Mrauk-U cultural conservation group.

More than 700 IDPs sheltering at a monastery in Thay Kan village, Minbya Township, are in urgent need of food assistance, according to Ashin Pyinyar Bala, the monastery’s head monk.

The Tatmadaw on January 27 told IDPs at a temporary camp in Sa Nyin village, Myebon Township, to relocate for their own safety, the military said in a statement, days after its soldiers were accused of forcibly dismantling shelters and ordering the camp’s inhabitants to clear out.