Arakan Review: Return To War

Table of content

Summary

Background

Critical Notes on Civilian Causalities

Humanitarian Challenges

• Four Significant Highlights
• The ULA/AA gained more territory
• Targeted arrests of its servants, businesspeople, and social workers
• Forced attempts to relocate IDP
• Conflict Spreading

Purpose of report

This report aims at the regional and international community including both governmental and nongovernmental organizations including journalists, scholars, academia, and interested individuals to gain a better understanding of Rakhine/Arakan affairs.

Summary

Just 20 months after a de facto ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA), a series of armed clashes resumed in three locations in northern Rakhine, and another one in its neighboring southern Chin state’s Paletwa.

The returning war since August 2022 shows no signs of stopping now. The negative impacts of the armed conflict on the civilian population are also quite visible.

The objectives of the current report are to present the changing conflict map in Rakhine and its neighboring areas, and to analyze the relations among changes in terms of armed clashes plus casualties, arrests, and humanitarian crisis. The collected data in this report mainly rely on the local, national, and regional news and observations.

The current report will also consist of three key sections such as new developments regarding the changing conflict map and its consequences, notes on the civilian causalities and the topic of humanitarian challenges. In the final part, four key highlights during the previous three months have been mentioned.

Background

Rakhine State is one of the most underdeveloped and highly conflicted areas in Myanmar despite having its rich and proud memories in its history. It is also a place that is militarily unstable, politically fragile, economically impoverished, socially fragmented, culturally, and ethnically diverse, religiously divided. As a result of the military coup in the first week of February last year, the country has fallen into a situation of political turmoil, administrative vacuum and rising violence and a nationwide political uprising against the military junta.

Nevertheless, Rakhine State remained relatively stable while other states and regions witnessed massive peaceful protests against the coup, civil services joined the civil disobedience movement (CDM) and a few months later, peaceful protesters turned into armed resistance groups.

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