Yangon: Rakhine state in western Myanmar plays a key role in determining the outcome of the civil war that has been raging in the Southeast Asian nation since its military seized power in a coup in February 2021. According to Deutsche Welle, the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group originating in Rakhine, has posed one of the biggest military challenges for the ruling junta. The AA has managed to seize control of almost the entire state and is also active in other parts of Myanmar. However, its advance has slowed down recently.
Meanwhile, the region is also experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe, which is receiving little global attention. Reports on Rakhine are as sketchy as those on the ongoing civil war in Sudan. “Rakhine stands on the precipice of an unprecedented disaster,” the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) already warned last year. The situation in Rakhine has also had a significant impact on the fate of the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.
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ccording to the World Health Organization, around 650,000 Rohingya fled from Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh due to ethnic cleansing by the Myanmar military, particularly in the years 2016 and 2017. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says there are still some 630,000 Rohingya people living in Rakhine, most of them in northern border areas or in camps around the capital Sittwe. The state has always been one of Myanmar’s most disadvantaged regions, plagued by poverty, poor infrastructure, and internal tensions.
After the military coup in 2021, a ceasefire between the junta and the AA remained in place. But since fighting resumed in 2023, Rakhine has become one of the main battlegrounds in the civil war. The parties to the conflict have become embroiled in an ongoing multi-front conflict. In the regions south and east, as well as around the areas still held by the junta, the AA has been fighting against the military government. Most recently, it suffered heavy losses in its unsuccessful attempt to capture the deep-sea
port in Kyaukphyu.
Rakhine is currently largely cut off from the outside world. The Myanmar military is blocking all routes connecting the state to the country’s heartland and regularly bombs targets in Rakhine, also killing many civilians. The route to India is currently blocked because the government in New Delhi has closed the border due to a cholera epidemic. Bangladesh also closed its border in July. And Rohingya militias are operating in the Bangladesh-Myanmar border area, where they are fighting the AA.
People in the isolated, conflict-ridden region, meanwhile, are struggling to survive. In November, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) counted around 460,000 internally displaced persons. The United League of Arakan (ULA), the political arm of the Arakanese resistance, told DW that the actual figure is about 600,000. The numbers cannot be independently verified. If accurate, this would mean that about 20% of the region’s 3.6 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
All sides – t
he military junta, the AA, and Rohingya militias – accuse each other of human rights violations, massacres, war crimes, and terrorism. In other cases, however, it is often difficult to reconstruct exactly what happened and who is responsible. The burning down of villages, for instance, is well documented with the help of satellite images, but it is often impossible to determine beyond doubt who started the fires and when. Social media also often spreads alleged and actual atrocities indiscriminately, making it very difficult to get a realistic picture of the situation.
Against this difficult backdrop, the ULA is attempting to provide for the population, reduce tensions, and – as far as possible in a war zone – organize daily life. This often fails because the Rakhine and Rohingya ethnic groups distrust each other and often assume the worst. After taking control of northern Rakhine, for instance, the ULA decided to reopen schools. It called on Rohingya teachers to return to classes. However, as the ULA was un
able to pay the teachers due to a lack of financial resources, it suggested that the teachers collect the money from the students’ parents. This prompted resistance from the Rohingya teachers, who felt that the Arakanese were forcing them to exploit their own people, already suffering from severe deprivation.
In this precarious situation, every act of violence and every rumor can undermine attempts at rapprochement and contribute to prolonging the war, which is being fought not only on the battlefield but also in people’s minds.