Renewed hostilities between the Myanmar military and ethnic minority armed group the Arakan Army (AA) have spread to various townships in western Myanmar, including Pauktaw, where civilians have been caught in the crossfire as fighting escalates. <\/p>\n
\u201cI left the town the day the fighting broke out. But there are elderly people, sick people and families with young children left as they could not make haste,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s raining and a storm is coming too. It\u2019s a devastating situation. It breaks my heart to see people in such a situation.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ongoing clashes between the Arakan Army and the military began in the Rathedaung township on November 13 and have since spread to the townships of Maungdaw, Kyauktaw, Minbya, Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, and Paletwa, according to a statement from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on Friday. <\/p>\n
The renewed fighting has displaced more than 26,000 people in the country\u2019s western Rakhine state since Monday, according to UNOCHA. <\/p>\n
The two parties had previously established an informal ceasefire in November 2022, according to the UN, but fighting broke out after the Arakan Army reportedly attacked two border posts. <\/p>\n
In a\u00a0statement released on\u00a0Friday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said the latest figures brought the total number of internally displaced people due to the conflict between the two sides to approximately 90,000. It added that there had been reports of military shelling in Arakan Army-controlled areas. <\/p>\n
Myanmar\u2019s military had also conducted at least one operation backed by air and naval support, UNOCHA said. <\/p>\n
Myanmar military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said during a briefing Friday that the Myanmar army and police force had retaken the Pauktaw police station\u00a0and that the town \u201cwas already under control\u201d of the military. <\/p>\n
Most humanitarian activities have been suspended due to the resurgence of the conflict and \u201cvirtually all roads and waterways\u201d between townships in Rakhine have been blocked, according to OCHA. <\/p>\n
Battles between the military and resistance groups have unfolded almost daily across Myanmar since army general Min Aung Hlaing seized power in February 2021, plunging the country into economic chaos and fresh civil war. <\/p>\n
Airstrikes and ground attacks on what the Myanmar military calls \u201cterrorist\u201d targets have been occurred regularly since 2021 and have killed thousands of civilians to date, including children, according to\u00a0monitoring groups. <\/p>\n
Whole villages have been burned down by junta soldiers and schools, clinics and hospitals destroyed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was told he was crying out of pain, I can\u2019t imagine how he would be suffering in a pool of blood. The next morning, I got a call that he passed away at night,\u201d the man said. <\/p>\n
Despite the family reaching a hospital two days before hostilities resumed, they remained stranded in a house in Pauktaw after the town \u201cturned into a war zone,\u201d U Nan Diya said. <\/p>\n
The sick man\u2019s daughter had attempted to look for a boat to return to their village but was arrested by soldiers on Friday, he added. <\/p>\n
U Nan Diya said the 60-year-old man with heart disease was getting worse without medication. \u201c(His) family wants him at their home instead of letting him die at a stranger\u2019s house but nobody can go out or use the water route because the military navy is stationed in the sea, shooting everyone they see,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe sick man can\u2019t die peacefully.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Renewed hostilities between the Myanmar military and ethnic minority armed group the Arakan Army (AA) have spread to various townships in western Myanmar, including Pauktaw, where civilians have been caught in the crossfire as fighting escalates. \u201cI left the town the day the fighting broke out. But there are elderly people, sick people and families <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}