Sayeed Muhammad of DOT
Myanmar’s government says it has ordered the military to “crush” rebels in the Rakhine state, after raids by insurgents killed 13 police officers earlier this month.
The UN says fighting between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army forced about 5,000 people from their homes in the state in the past month, reports Reuters.
In 2017 attacks on security posts in the north of the state by insurgents from the Muslim Rohingya minority provoked a military crackdown sending more than 730,000 fleeing to Bangladesh.
The incident had sparked the biggest crisis of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s young administration.
Aid workers say military aircraft and trucks have been seen arriving in Rakhine since early January – raising fears conflict could intensify once again in the state.
The Arakan Army says it formed nearly a decade ago to fight for self-determination for Rakhine, which it says has been exploited by a remote central government.
Many early recruits were ethnic Rakhine Buddhists who had travelled to northern Myanmar to make their fortune toiling in the jade mines there.
They gathered and trained in territory along Myanmar’s border with China that is held by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of the largest ethnic armed groups still fighting the Myanmar military. Arakan Army fighters have fought the military alongside the KIA as part of a “northern alliance” in northern Shan state since late 2016.
Arakan Army forces have also moved into the rugged western borderlands with India and Bangladesh, where they are believed to number about 3,000.
In parallel, the group has launched a propaganda push aimed at inspiring an uprising across Rakhine in 2020.