A powerful armed ethnic group in Myanmar said on Sunday it had won control over a town in the western state of Rakhine after weeks of fighting, denying accusations it had targeted members of the Muslim-minority Rohingya during the offensive.

Khine Thu Kha, a spokesman for the Arakan Army (AA), said its soldiers had taken Buthidaung near Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh, marking another battlefield defeat for the ruling junta that is fighting opposition groups on multiple fronts.

“We have conquered all the bases in Buthidaung and also took over the town yesterday,” Khine Thu Kha told Reuters by telephone.

Some Rohingya activists accuse the AA of targeting the community during the assault on Buthidaung and surrounding areas, forcing many of them to flee for safety.

“AA troops came into downtown, forced the people to leave their homes and started torching houses,” Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition advocacy group told Reuters, based on what he said were eyewitness accounts.

“While the town was burning, I spoke with several people I have known and trusted for years. They all testified that the arson attack was done by the AA.”

Reuters could not independently verify the conflicting accounts. A junta spokesman did not respond to a call seeking comment.

Rohingya have faced persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for decades. After escaping a military-led crackdown in 2017, nearly a million of them live crammed into refugee camps in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar.

Junta’s Biggest Challenge

Myanmar has been in turmoil since a 2021 military coup, which led to the rise of the resistance fighting alongside long-established ethnic minority rebel groups.

The conflict has escalated since October, when an alliance of ethnic armies including the AA launched a major offensive near the Chinese border, taking swathes of territory from the better-armed junta and presenting its biggest challenge since taking power.

The junta has lost control of around half its 5,280 military positions, including outposts, bases and headquarters, according to one estimate.

The AA’s Khine Thu Kha said junta aircraft and Muslim insurgent groups aligned with the military had set fire to parts of Buthidaung, which had a population of around 55,000 people, according to the most recent government census available, from 2014.

“The burning of Buthidaung is due to the air strikes from the junta’s jet fighter before our troops entered the town,” he said.

Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya civil society activist and a deputy minister in Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said Rohingya residents had been asked by the AA to leave Buthidaung but had responded that they had nowhere to go, leaving them trapped when the offensive occurred.

“Since about 10 p.m. last night up to this early morning, Buthidaung town had been burning and now only ashes remain,” he told Reuters.

Rohingya residents fled to the field and there may casualties, he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Members of Myanmar Border Guard Police, in civilian clothing, sit under the shade of trees after abandoning their posts following an alleged attack by members of the Arakan Army as Bangladesh border guards stand guard in Ghumdhum, Bandarban, Bangladesh, on Monday, Feb. 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

A Myanmar ethnic minority armed group on Saturday claimed its fighters had seized control of a town in western Rakhine state, in what would be another blow to the junta.

Clashes have rocked Rakhine since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the 2021 military coup.

AA fighters have seized territory, including along the border with India and Bangladesh, piling further pressure on the junta as it battles opponents elsewhere across the Southeast Asian country.

“We seized all bases of the Myanmar Army in Buthidaung,” in northern Rakhine state, the AA said on its Telegram channel on Saturday.

Those seized included a “military strategic headquarters”, it added, without giving details.

Its fighters were still clashing with junta troops outside the town, it said.

Buthidaung sits around 90 km north of state capital Sittwe, which is still held by the military.

Earlier this month, the AA said it had taken hundreds of junta personnel prisoner following an assault on a command near the Buthidaung.

A junta spokesman has been approached for comment.

Communication with Rakhine is extremely difficult, with most mobile networks down.

The AA is one of several armed ethnic minority groups in Myanmar’s border regions, many of whom have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 over autonomy and control of lucrative resources.

The AA claims to be fighting for more autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine population.

Fighting had spread to 15 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships since November, the UN’s human rights chief said last month.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded and more than 300,000 displaced, it said.

Clashes between the AA and the military in 2019 roiled the region and displaced around 200,000 people.

The military launched a crackdown on the Rohingya minority there in 2017 which is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.