This photo taken on May 21, 2024 shows people rebuilding temporary homes near a destroyed building following fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA) ethnic minority armed group in a village in Minbya Township in Rakhine State.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Myanmar’s Rakhine State is facing a terrifying situation similar to the run-up to “genocidal violence” eight years ago against the persecuted Rohingya minority, a UN expert warned on July 4.

Speaking at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Thomas Andrews, the special rapporteur on the situation in Myanmar, voiced deep alarm at recent events in the western region.

“The situation in Rakhine State, where the junta is rapidly losing territory to the Arakan Army, is terrifying,” Mr. Andrews said.

“For Rohingya people — oppressed, scapegoated, exploited, and stuck between warring parties — the situation carries echoes of the lead-up to genocidal violence in 2016 and 2017.”

Clashes have rocked Rakhine State since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November.

That ended a ceasefire that had largely held since a military coup in 2021 after a short-lived experiment with democracy.

AA fighters have seized swathes of territory, piling pressure on the junta as it battles opponents elsewhere.

Mr. Andrews, an independent expert appointed by the rights council who does not speak on behalf of the UN, said the military had been conscripting “thousands of Rohingya youth and mobilising them against the Arakan Army”.

“Even though many Rohingya young men have been taken to the front lines of the conflict against their will, the potential for retaliation by members of the Arakan community, and a downward spiral of violence, is enormous,” he cautioned.

Mr. Andrews said there were reports linking AA soldiers to rights violations against Rohingya civilians, at a time when the humanitarian situation for both Rohingya and Rakhine people was “extremely dire”.

He said “tens, if not hundreds of thousands, have been displaced in Rakhine State”.

In May, the AA said it had seized the town of Buthidaung in northern Rakhine, home to many Rohingya Muslims.

Several Rohingya diaspora groups later accused the AA of forcing Rohingya to flee and then looting and burning their homes — claims the AA called “propaganda”.

The AA, which says it is fighting for autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine population, has vowed to capture the whole of the state.

Military personnel.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Myanmar’s main pro-democracy resistance group said on April 4 its armed wing launched drone attacks on the airport and a military headquarters in the capital, Naypyitaw, but the country’s ruling military said it destroyed the drones as they attacked.

The opposition National Unity Government ‘s “Defence Ministry” said in a statement that special units of the People’s Defense Force used drones to attack the targets simultaneously. The group, known by the acronym NUG, calls itself the country’s legitimate government, while the People’s Defense Force is made up of many local resistance groups with a good deal of independence.

NUG said there were reports of casualties. The country’s military said it shot down seven drones and there were no reports of casualties.

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It wasn’t possible to independently verify most details of the attack.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power from the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, triggering nationwide peaceful protests that were suppressed with deadly force by the security forces, leading to armed resistance that amounts to a civil war.

The airport compound, which includes both a military air base and a civilian airport, is about 25 kilometres (16 miles) southwest of the military headquarters that the resistance group said it attacked.

The resistance group that claimed responsibility for the attack, Kloud Team (Shar Htoo Waw ), specializes in drone warfare, which is frequently employed by People’s Defense Force units, which lack the army’s heavy firepower.

Also Read | The Myanmar conflict is a regional problem 

Kloud Team said it targeted the house of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the ruling military council, as well as the military headquarters and air base,

Despite its great advantage in armaments and manpower, the military has been unable to quell the resistance movement, and frequently carries out air strikes in disputed territory. Civilian targets are often hit, and about 2.4 million people have been displaced since the 2021 army takeover.

For the resistance forces, drones have become crucial weapons for fighting back. Initially, smaller drones with lighter payloads were used, but now the opposition groups are using more sophisticated systems to drop explosives on military targets. Resistance groups frequently post videos on social media of their drone attacks.

Lin Lin
| Photo Credit: AFP

Student activist Lin Lin led protests against Myanmar’s junta, defying the generals for months before being hunted down and caught.

Now serving a 15-year sentence, she regrets nothing. “I wanted to do that more than anything else,” she said. “And if you ask what I will do if I am released, I will do it again.”

The 25-year-old psychology student grew up during a rare semi-democratic interlude in Myanmar.

When the military staged a coup in February 2021 citing unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud, she joined millions of others demonstrating in the streets. Soldiers fired live bullets into the crowds, arrested thousands.

Also read: Myanmar junta, armed alliance confirm China-mediated ceasefire

The demonstrations gradually fizzled out, but Lin Lin was determined to find a way to keep defiance against the junta at the top of people’s minds.

Lin lin began organising protests around Yangon. She used messaging apps to summon dozens of young protesters, who would converge under colonial-era tenements. They would light flares and unfurl banners. Others criticised the junta through megaphones as passers-by looked on.

Seconds later, the protesters would break apart, scattering down side streets or into waiting vehicles before security forces could arrive. Each event was filmed and the footage uploaded to social media.

With the military tightening its grip on life in Yangon, the rush of each protest was followed by fear.

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Lin Lin said goodbye to her family and went underground in the commercial hub of around eight million people, changing safehouses every few days and always dreading a knock at the door.

In March 2022 a junta-controlled court jailed her for three years under a law that outlaws any action deemed to undermine the military. Lin Lin was also later jailed for another two years for possessing a fake ID.

The monotony of life in prison is broken occasionally by food parcels from home. Only when she meets family members at court hearings is Lin Lin able to hear news of the turmoil that continues to rock Myanmar more than three years since the coup.

This handout photo taken and released October 28, 2023 by the Kokang Information Network shows members of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army walking past a Myanmar military base after seizing it during clashes near Laukkaing township in Myanmar’s northern Shan state.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Heavy fighting between rebels and the Myanmar military stretched into a second day near the country’s northern border with China, armed groups said on Saturday.

Myanmar’s junta seized power in a February 2021 coup that sparked renewed fighting with powerful ethnic rebel groups in northern Shan state.

An alliance of ethnic rebel groups launched coordinated attacks on military positions across the country’s north on Friday, posing a fresh challenge to the junta as it struggles to quell resistance to its rule.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army said Saturday it had seized three military outposts — two located close to Mongko near the border with China.

The rebels also ambushed a group of soldiers coming from Hopang and seized military equipment.

The group did not provide details of fatalities.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army said Saturday it had so far seized three military outposts at Namhkam and 18 soldiers were killed.

The group also said it had taken two military outposts at Lashio and netted a haul of military equipment.

The military deployed a fighter jet and helicopter gunship to Lashio, the TNLA statement said.

Overnight, there was heavy shelling for seven hours near Lashio, a local rescue worker said, adding the fighting had died down on Saturday.

Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told local media on Friday that rebels had attacked military positions in the Chinshwehaw, Laukkai, and Kunlong areas and some outposts were lost.

“We tried to maintain peace and stability in north Shan, but insurgents tried to destroy stability,” he said.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday it was “closely following” the fighting and called on all sides to prevent the situation from escalating.

Shan state has been earmarked for a proposed billion-dollar rail link under China’s Belt and Road global infrastructure project.

A protester holds a poster with an image of detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a candlelight vigil to honour those who have died during demonstrations against the military coup in Yangon on March 13, 2021.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Myanmar’s junta is endangering the life of jailed democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi, her political party said on Thursday, accusing the military of depriving her of medical care and food.

Suu Kyi has been detained since the generals seized power in February 2021, ending a 10-year democratic experiment and plunging the Southeast Asian country into bloody turmoil.

In recent days, local media have reported the Nobel laureate, 78, was suffering dizzy spells, vomiting and unable to eat because of a tooth infection.

“We are particularly concerned that she is not receiving adequate medical care and they are not providing healthy food nor accommodation sufficiently with the intention to risk her life,” the National League for Democracy said.

“If Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s health is not only impaired but her life also is endangered, the military junta is solely responsible,” the statement said, using a Burmese honorific.

During her 19-month trial in a junta court that rights groups denounced as a sham, Suu Kyi regularly skipped hearings on health grounds.

That trial ended last year, with Suu Kyi jailed for a total of 33 years in prison, a term later partially reduced by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

Suu Kyi’s UK-based son told the BBC last week that the junta was denying treatment to his mother for dizziness and a gum disease, though he is not in direct contact with her.

A junta spokesman told AFP last week that reports of Suu Kyi’s ill health were “rumours”.

“She’s not suffering from anything as her medical doctors are taking care of her health,” Zaw Min Tun said.

Suu Kyi, who remains widely popular in Myanmar, was being held as a “hostage… in secret places”, by the junta, the NLD said.

The party asked the international community to “advance efforts and push” for the release of Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Myanmar.

According to a local monitoring group, more than 24,000 people have been arrested in the junta’s sweeping crackdown since the coup.

In June 2022, after more than a year under house arrest, Suu Kyi was moved to a prison compound in another part of the sprawling, military-built capital Naypyidaw.

There, she was no longer permitted her domestic staff of around 10 people and assigned military-chosen helpers, sources told AFP at the time.

Confinement in the isolated capital is a far cry from the years Suu Kyi spent under house arrest during a previous junta, where she became a world-famous democracy figurehead.

During that period, she lived at her family’s colonial-era lakeside mansion in commercial hub Yangon and regularly gave speeches to crowds on the other side of her garden wall.

The NLD has been decimated in the junta’s bloody crackdown on dissent, with one former lawmaker executed by the junta in the country’s first use of capital punishment in decades.

In March, the junta dissolved the party for failing to re-register under a tough new military-drafted electoral law, removing it from polls it has indicated it may hold in 2025.