By: Camp Correspondent
Buthidaung, Rakhine State — 2 July 2025 |
Rohingya families who had recently returned to their homes in Buthidaung Township are being forcibly evicted once again by the Arakan Army (AA), according to local residents. Displaced from neighborhoods and villages they had lived in for generations, they are now being relocated to bare plots of land on the eastern bank of the Mayu River, with no shelter, aid, or access to basic resources.
Each family has reportedly been assigned a 20 x 40 ft plot, but is required to construct their own shelter, despite ongoing monsoon rains and restrictions on gathering bamboo or firewood from nearby forests. Many families have no means to purchase construction materials, leaving them exposed to the elements in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.
“We were told to leave or face arrest,” said one Rohingya resident. “Even those whose homes were not burned down were told they couldn’t live near army camps or main roads.”
This follows earlier devastation on 18 March 2024, when fires—allegedly set deliberately—destroyed Rohingya-majority neighborhoods in Buthidaung’s Blocks 1, 2, 4, and 6, while Block 7 was heavily damaged. Survivors who returned to rebuild in the ruins or take shelter in partially intact Block 5 have now been removed as well.
Entire Rohingya villages have been cleared by AA, including:
Pyin Shay, Maung Gyi Taung, Kyar Maung Taung, Da Byu Chaung, Palae Taung, Aung Lan Pyin, Tharye Kone Tan, Maung Hla Ma, Kone Tan, Nga Kyin Tauk, Mee Kyaung Khon Hswe, Laung Chaung, A Twin Nge Thay, Pya Pin Yin, Than Shaung Khan, Ywet Nyo Taung, Kon Taing, Tharyet Kin Manu, Mee Kyaung Zay, Phato Ali, Darpine Sayar, Myitnar, Nga Ran Chaung, and Kyee Nout Thee.
While Rohingya families are forced to survive in makeshift settlements, the same land—originally Rohingya-owned farmland confiscated by the Myanmar military—is being distributed to ethnic Rakhine settlers. Families arriving from areas like Sittwe, Thandwe, and Rathedaung are reportedly being given:
- Two acres of farmland per family
- Farming equipment and machinery
- Agricultural supplies and financial support
These new Rakhine settlements are growing rapidly in Maung Gyi Taung, Tat Min Chaung, and other areas once home to Rohingya communities. Local sources suggest that the AA is actively implementing a policy known as the “Security Path”—a strategy believed to be designed to permanently alter the region’s demographics by clearing Rohingya-majority villages and replacing them with Rakhine settlements.
In contrast, Rohingya families are prohibited from returning to or using their own farmland, and some who have refused eviction orders were threatened with arrest.
Conditions in the new resettlement zones are grim. Shelters are tightly packed, poorly built, and lack proper toilets or waste disposal. Residents fear outbreaks of disease. Despite multiple pleas, AA authorities have reportedly provided no response or support.
Since the AA took full control of Buthidaung, an estimated 100,000 Rohingya have fled, and tens of thousands more have been forcibly relocated into what residents describe as makeshift refugee camps inside Rakhine State.
Observers warn that this is part of a deliberate effort to erase the Rohingya presence from northern Rakhine—echoing the mass displacement of 2017. The scale and coordination of current evictions, combined with land redistribution policies, have raised serious concerns about long-term ethnic cleansing and demographic engineering under AA control.
