Myanmar Army/AP
In 2020, ahead of the ceasefire between Myanmar armed forces and the Arakan Army, a fire breaks out in Mrauk-U township in Rakhine State, western Myanmar.
CNN –
Renewed hostilities between the Myanmar military and the ethnic minority armed group the Arakan Army (AA) have spread to several townships in western Myanmar, including Pauktaw, where civilians are caught in the crossfire as fighting escalates.
A former assemblyman from Pauktaw Township, who did not want to be identified for security reasons, told CNN on Saturday that he had lost contact with people from the town and didn’t know what was going on.
“I left the city the day the fighting broke out. But there are still elderly people, sick people and families with small children who couldn’t hurry,” he said.
“It’s raining and a storm is coming. It’s a devastating situation. It breaks my heart to see people in such a situation.”
Ongoing clashes between the Arakan Army and the military began in Rathedaung township on November 13 and have since spread to Maungdaw, Kyauktaw, Minbya, Pauktaw, Ponnagyun and Paletwa townships, a statement from the United Nations office for said the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on Friday.
Renewed fighting has displaced more than 26,000 people in the country’s western Rakhine state since Monday, according to UNOCHA.
According to the United Nations, the two parties had previously reached an informal ceasefire in November 2022, but fighting broke out after the Arakan Army reportedly attacked two border posts.
In a statement released on Friday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said the total number of internally displaced people due to the conflict between the two sides is about 90,000, according to the latest figures. It added that there had been reports of military shelling in areas controlled by the Arakan Army.
UNOCHA said the Myanmar military also conducted at least one operation supported by air and naval support.
Myanmar military spokesman Zaw Min Tun said during a briefing on Friday that the Myanmar army and police had recaptured the Pauktaw police station and that the town was “already under the control” of the military.
According to OCHA, most humanitarian activities have been suspended due to the resurgence of conflict and “virtually all roads and waterways” between townships in Rakhine have been blocked.
Since Army General Min Aung Hlaing took power in February 2021, plunging the country into economic chaos and a new civil war, there have been almost daily fighting between the military and resistance groups across Myanmar.
Since 2021, airstrikes and ground strikes have occurred regularly on what the Myanmar military calls “terrorist” targets, killing thousands of civilians to date, including children, according to monitoring groups.
Entire villages were burned down by junta soldiers and schools, clinics and hospitals were destroyed.
The son of a Pauktow man killed in recent hostilities told CNN his father was “hit by artillery guns in a meditation center” after soldiers from the Myanmar State Administration Council (SAC) began firing at him. constant.”
“I was told he was crying in pain. I can’t imagine how he would suffer in a pool of blood. The next morning I received a call that he had passed away in the night,” the man said.
U Nan Diya, the abbot monk of Chaung Suak village, told CNN that he helped three villagers – a heart-sick father accompanied by his daughter and son-in-law.
Although the family reached a hospital two days before hostilities resumed, they remained stranded in a house in Pauktaw after the town “turned into a war zone,” U Nan Diya said.
The sick man’s daughter tried to look for a boat to return to her village but was arrested by soldiers on Friday, he added.
U Nan Diya said the 60-year-old man with heart disease worsened without medication. “(His) family wants him at home instead of letting him die at a stranger’s home, but no one can go out or use the waterway because the military navy is stationed in the sea and shoots everyone it sees,” he said.
“The sick person cannot die peacefully.”