An intensification of fighting between ethnic Arakan Army fighters and junta troops in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state has caused tens of thousands of villagers to flee four major townships in anticipation of additional clashes, residents said Friday.
Myanmar police arrested nearly 100 undocumented Rohingya Muslims from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state for illegal travel after raiding two houses in Yangon on Wednesday, saying that they had been trafficked and were heading to Malaysia
Nine members of an extended family from a village in Maungdaw township were traveling home from a Buddhist alms-giving ceremony when their vehicle hit the mine. Kyaw Ye Aung, 25, his wife Aye Sann Nu, 20, and their son Kyaw Hsan Oo, 3 were killed, while four severely injured family members were taken to a hospital in the state capital Sittwe on Wednesday
On Friday, the last day of the two-month-long political campaign period, some 300 ballots submitted at one polling state during the advanced voting were declared null and void after election officials discovered check marks for a local party already stamped on 14 ballots
The fighting between the Myanmar military and the AA, an ethnic Rakhine armed force which is battling for greater autonomy in the western state, erupted a year after a scorched-earth military crackdown drove 740,000 Rohingya Muslims from the same region to overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh
The May 14 order was revoked on May 19, frustrating members of the Rohingya community originally displaced from their homes in Sittwe’s Seyton Su Muslim
The confusing situation, especially in the Mon and Rakhine States – where the army has rejected the truce – makes it difficult to attribute responsibility for civilian deaths to rebels or government soldiers
Nearly 10,000 displaced villagers in Chin’s remote Paletwa township are in urgent need of shelter before the start of the annual monsoon season later this month, with local officials pledging to build modest bamboo structures for them
Local administrators, lawmakers, and civil society organizations are working together to build 500 living quarters for the IDPs on five acres of township land before annual torrential rains begin in late May, said Khin Saw Wai, a lawmaker from Rathedaung township
Among the 105 organisations seeking the restoration of Internet access in Rakhine and Chin are the Shan State Peace Organisation, Peace Committee of Rakhine State Civilian Organisation, Rakhine Women’s Network, Rakhine Women’s Union and the Rakhine State Peace and Stability Support Team. “In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, prohibiting people from access to information is a human rights violation