By: Hafizur Rahman
July 28, 2025
A series of alarming incidents has laid bare the worsening plight of the Rohingya community in Myanmar’s Rakhine (Arakan) State, where the Arakan Army (AA) continues to tighten its grip amid ongoing conflict with the Myanmar military. From mass detentions and violent extortion to the death of a tortured youth and the re-displacement of returnee families, Rohingya civilians remain caught in a relentless cycle of fear and flight.
On July 25, nearly 60 Rohingya farmers were detained by AA fighters while working their own farmlands in Buthidaung Township’s Sein Hnyin Pya and Tha Baik Taung villages. Local residents say the detainees received no prior warning and had been paying monthly “taxes” to the AA for permission to farm.
“They didn’t tell us not to go,” said one farmer. “We are even paying them to use our land.”
The detained individuals were reportedly held overnight in Kyauk Sar Taing before being moved to an undisclosed location. Their whereabouts remain unknown, heightening anxiety among families already living under near-total AA control in the region.
This incident comes on the heels of another tragedy: the death of 18-year-old Muhammad Ershad, a Rohingya youth who succumbed to injuries sustained during AA detention. Ershad died in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, after months of treatment following his release in December 2024. He had been arrested in Buthidaung in May 2024 and spent over seven months in custody, where he was reportedly subjected to electric shocks, beatings, starvation, and prolonged psychological abuse. One of his legs had to be amputated due to untreated injuries.
“He never recovered,” a family member said. “Even after his release, he was in pain every day until the end.”
The brutality of the AA has also driven some Rohingya families who had voluntarily returned to Myanmar to flee once again. One such family of five—originally from Maungdaw—recently escaped to Bangladesh after the AA raided their home and demanded a ransom of 50 million kyats. According to Mohammed Zubair, a cousin of the family and former returnee himself, the armed group beat members of the household and issued death threats.
“They tortured the family and demanded money,” said Zubair. “My cousin managed to escape with his wife and children across the Naf River.”
Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, confirmed the family’s return, citing “torture and extortion” as the cause.
These developments cast a long shadow over the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ recent announcement that 82 Rohingya had returned to Rakhine earlier this month in the first reported voluntary repatriation since the 2017 exodus. The rapidly deteriorating security environment—marked by AA’s increasing territorial dominance and repeated human rights violations—threatens any hope of a dignified and sustainable return.
With more than one million Rohingya still confined to overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, the options are grim. While life in the camps remains marked by poverty, aid cuts, and uncertainty, the conditions back in Myanmar now mirror—or in some cases exceed—the abuses they once fled.
As armed conflict intensifies and persecution escalates, human rights groups are calling on the international community to urgently reassess its strategies around repatriation, protection, and accountability in Rakhine State.
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