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War is encroaching into Myanmar’s rice-basket Ayeyarwady River delta, residents said on Tuesday, as fighters from the powerful Arakan Army, or AA, rebel group pile pressure on the military as they push out of their home territory.
The AA has defeated forces of the junta that seized power in 2021 in almost the whole of Rakhine state, and while it focuses on the last military-controlled pockets, it is also building on its momentum to attack into the Magway region to the northeast, Bago to the east and Ayeyarwady to the south.
More than 1,000 people from three delta villagers in Ayeyarwady’s Lemyethna township, about 35 kilometers (20 miles) to the west of Myanmar’s main river, were forced to flee from their homes as fighting erupted on Monday when junta forces tried to expel the AA from the area they recently occupied.
“Le Khon Gyi, Wut Kone and San Kone, those villages had to move. There were about 1,000 people,” said one resident who declined to be identified for security reasons.
It was the first time there had ever been fighting in the area, residents said, another indication of the unprecedented setbacks the junta has suffered over the past 18 months as ethnic minority insurgents and allied pro-democracy fighters battle to end military rule.
The military is hoping to retake lost territory during the current dry season, and expand its area of control in the run-up to an election due by January, which it hopes will re-assert its authority and legitimacy, at home and abroad.
Anti-junta forces reject an election under military rule as a farce and have vowed to defend their areas of control.
Monday’s battle was near the Pathein-Monywa highway, a major north-south road connection where military patrols had increased, residents said.
Neither the AA nor the military’s 344 Artillery Battalion which operates in the area has released any information about casualties. Their spokespeople were not available for comment.
The AA draws its support from Rakhine state’s mostly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine people. Of all of Myanmar’s insurgent forces, it is closest to defeating the military in a state and taking power.
The loss of the state would be an unprecedented blow to the military and would force China, which has major investments in the state, to deal directly with the insurgents to protect its interests.
Chinese companies have energy facilities on the coast from where oil and gas pipelines run all the way to its Yunnan province, and it also has plans for a deep sea port as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
Tightly controlled military-run media has not reported on the dire situation facing its forces in the state and rarely gives any detail about fighting anywhere.
On Tuesday, the military-run Myanmar Alin newspaper did mention the war in Rakhine state but only in connection with the disruption to the education system.
Fewer than half of all school leavers in the state were able to take their college entrance exams, all in the last three pockets of territory under junta control, because of the fighting, it said.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.