Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.
In just over a year of fighting, Myanmar’s ethnic Arakan Army has captured 14 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships, defeating the military in battle after battle in a stunning advance.
Amid the rapidly changing situation in the western state, residents displaced by the conflict have begun to return home, bolstered by the belief that the Arakan Army, or AA, would offer them protection from the military, which seized control of Myanmar in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
Such was the case for a dozen persons displaced from Rakhine’s capital Sittwe and Gwa township, who secretly attempted to cross the Rakhine Yoma mountain range on the night of March 8 via motorbike taxis from neighboring Ayeyarwady region’s Thabaung township, where they had sheltered during the fighting.
The displaced individuals, who included some children as young as 1 year old, had hoped to evade scrutiny during the journey.
But they were stopped by a joint force of junta troops and police officers at a logging camp near Ayeyarwady’s Ma Yan Cho village and “subjected to a suspicious inspection,” said a resident of Thabaung who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
“All of the Rakhine residents ... were arrested,” he told RFA Burmese. “They were then transported by car, their hands tied behind their backs with ropes, and taken to a pagoda compound.”
The resident said that in addition to the dozen people, junta forces also arrested the four motorbike taxi drivers from Thabaung who had agreed to take them across the border.
After being arrested, he said, at least one of them was able to escape from the vehicle they were transported in, while the other 11 remain in custody — reportedly at the Yegyi Township Police Station in Ayeyarwady.
Steep fees to return
RFA spoke to family members of the displaced from Rakhine’s Thandwe and Gwa townships who, since last month, have tried to return home from sheltering in Ayeyarwady’s Yegyi, Thabaung and Kyonpyaw townships.
They said that their loved ones had paid 350,000-400,000 kyats (US$165-190) per person — a massive fee for any Burmese citizen, let alone those who have been forced to flee with only the clothes on their backs — to rent motorbike taxis to make the journey via jungle roads to evade junta checkpoints.
Junta forces have taken note and begun arresting internally displaced persons, or IDPs, looking to return to their home state.
From February up to the second week of March, at least 26 IDPs were arrested near the foothills of the Rakhine Yoma while returning home from Yegyi and Kyonpyaw townships, a person with knowledge of the situation told RFA.
“Junta forces arrested them on their way back home,” said the source, who also declined to be named. “One group of 20 IDPs and another group of six IDPs were arrested in recent days ... on the way near [Ayeyarwady’s] Nga Thaing Chaung township.”
The arrested IDPs included children under 18 and adults in their 50s, he said, and are being held by the Yegyi township police.
Accused of terrorism
A displaced person from Rakhine who is sheltering in Yegyi township told RFA that there were “nearly 100″ people held in police custody in Yegyi and Nga Thaing Chaung who had tried to return home to Rakhine, none of whom have been charged with a crime.
“The arrested IDPs are being held within the police station compound, where they have to prepare their own meals,” he said. “They have not been formally charged. Both children and adults are being detained in overcrowded conditions.”
After losing control of more than half of Rakhine state’s townships, the junta enacted a ban on the transportation of fuel and food products there in a bid to stem the flow of supplies to the AA.
At least some who have been arrested as they attempted to return to Rakhine state have been charged under Myanmar’s Counter-Terrorism Law, accused of having connections with the AA. Additionally, sources told RFA, they face charges for violating the ban on transporting food into Rakhine.
Attempts by RFA to contact Khin Maung Kyi, the junta’s spokesperson for Ayeyarwady region and minister of social affairs, for comment on the series of IDP arrests went unanswered Wednesday.
About 500,000 people in Rakhine state have been displaced by fighting between junta forces and the AA since hostilities began, and aid workers say they face severe hardships in the places where they have taken shelter, including a lack of access to food and medicine.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.