By: Camp Correspondent
June 3, 2025
While some Muslims in Arakan Army (AA/ULA)-controlled areas of Rakhine State report modest improvements in local travel access, others—especially Rohingya in Maungdaw Township—are facing a deepening medical blockade, with critically ill patients denied emergency transfers to Bangladesh.
Freedom of Movement in Name Only: Travel Permitted with Pricey One-Day Letters
Residents of townships like Minbya and Mrauk-U say they are now allowed to travel between villages and towns if they carry a recommendation letter from village administrators. However, the letter is valid for only one day, and villagers must pay 3,000 kyats to obtain it, regardless of purpose.
“If we go to Kyauktaw or Taungoke, we can’t come back in one day,” said a Muslim man from Mrauk-U. “They should allow at least three days for emergencies. This one-day rule is unfair.”
Despite the limitations, some residents say this system is an improvement over the past, when Myanmar military forces arrested Muslims for leaving villages, extorted bribes, and forced them into labor.
“Now we just need a letter to travel. Before, we were prisoners in our own homes,” one resident told Rohingya Khobor.
Travel with letters is reportedly possible across 14 of the 17 Rakhine townships, excluding areas such as Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Maung, which remain under Myanmar military control.
Still, the “freedom” comes at a cost—financial, logistical, and emotional—for a stateless population already burdened by daily surveillance and discrimination.
Critically Ill Rohingya in Maungdaw Denied Emergency Medical Access to Bangladesh
While small-scale movement is permitted inland, Rohingya in northern Maungdaw are now reporting a total ban on medical referrals to Bangladesh, even for life-threatening emergencies.
Previously, patients were allowed to cross into Bangladesh with official AA-issued medical letters, which were expensive and time-consuming to obtain, ranging from 25,000 to 300,000 kyats depending on the level of corruption and urgency. Now, even those with valid documents are turned back at AA checkpoints, particularly near Laungdon village on the route to Taung Pyo.
“We paid for a letter, waited a month, and still they sent us back,” said one man accompanying a relative needing surgery. “There is no hospital here that can treat us. We are being left to die.”
In some cases, villagers who stayed in Bangladesh longer than the one-month permit were fined retroactively, often forced to pay over 20,000 kyats in penalty fees.
“We are trapped. We can’t go anywhere, not even to get medicine,” said a woman from Maungdaw. “There is hunger, fear, and silence everywhere.”
Many fear that the restriction on medical travel will lead to a rise in preventable deaths and push desperate families toward dangerous escape routes by sea, where many perish in search of care and dignity.
Between Conditional Access and Total Blockade
The contrasting policies—allowing movement within AA-controlled zones for a fee, while blocking life-saving medical travel outside—underscore what Rohingya residents describe as a system of controlled containment.
“They let us move—but only in circles,” said a young man from Kyauk Taw. “The moment we try to escape the trap, we hit the wall again.”
As humanitarian access remains severely restricted across northern Rakhine, Rohingya families continue to live in survival mode, with neither freedom nor protection.
