Residents Head Back to Myanmar’s Maungdaw as Fighting Subsides
Maungdaw, 24 Muharram 1438/25 October 2016 (MINA) – Some of the people who fled Maungdaw township after deadly fighting broke out in the volatile northern part of the Rakhine state earlier this month are trickling back into Maungdaw as the area struggles to return to normal.
Some schools have reopened in Maungdaw, the administrative capital of Maungdaw township in the restive Rakhine state, but schools in rural villages remain closed over safety fears, Rakhine state government officials told RFA’s Myanmar Service.
“Female teachers are already in Maungdaw,” Chan Thar, the Rakhine state’s social welfare minister, told RFA. “When it is safe for them, we will send them to their villages.”
About 40 people from 14 households, who were staying in Rakhine state capital of Sittwe, have returned home. State government officials are providing them with emergency goods for living, while the civil society organization Sittwe Free Funeral Service is providing 50,000 kyats (U.S. $39) for each family.
“They want to go back to their homes as they know it is safe now in their places,” said Min Aung, the state’s city development minister. “That’s why the state government plans to send them back to their homes.”
Army soldiers and police swept into the area after nine officers died in raids on three border patrol stations in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships on Oct. 9.
The clashes between security forces and groups of armed men that followed, forced about 3,000 residents to flee to other parts of the Maungdaw township, the neighboring Buthidaung township and to the state capital of Sittwe.
So far, security forces have killed about 30 alleged insurgents and captured 29 others. They locked down the area as they hunted for roughly 400 other people involved in the attacks, whom they believe are local Muslims who received funding and training from Islamists abroad.
But, Muslim residents and rights activists say a military operation in northwestern Myanmar has killed more people than official reports have acknowledged, Bangkok Post report.
Maungdaw residents who spoke to Reuters accused security forces of killing non-combatants and burning homes.
“Clearly there are more than 30 killed,” said Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, a monitoring group that says it has drawn information from a network of sources throughout Maungdaw Township. “And many of them are civilians, not attackers.”
Lewa said the army was using “typical counter-insurgency measures against civilians”, including “shooting civilians on sight, burning homes, looting property and arbitrary arrests”.
The northern part of Rakhine state where Maungdaw is located has been under military control since the attacks and ensuing hostilities that authorities have blamed on insurgents linked to Aqa Mul Mujahidin, an Islamic organization active in Rohingya Muslim-majority Maungdaw. (T/P001/R07)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
