Arakan News Agency | Exclusive
Arakan (Buddhist separatist) militias reportedly informed displaced Rohingya residents of Kya Kyet Pet Kan Pyin village in the Tat Ya area of Buthidaung Township, Arakan State, during a meeting on December 6 that they would not be allowed to return to their homes unless they paid 3,000 lakh Myanmar Kyats.
Attending villagers described the announcement as a devastating blow that extinguished what little hope they had of returning. One resident told Arakan Now that paying the fee would not guarantee families the right to live in their original homes, many of which were burned or seized.
The militias reportedly outlined a new plan for the area, involving bulldozers to level the Tat Ya hills and allocating each displaced family a plot of only 40–50 square meters, arranged in a fixed camp-like layout. Families would be permitted to build solely on these designated plots, with no freedom to choose locations or reclaim their original lands.
Local sources indicated that the Arakan militias are seizing Rohingya villages to establish new Buddhist settlements—a tactic previously employed by the Myanmar military junta. Kya Kyet Pet Kan Pyin had been burned during earlier clashes between the militias and the junta, forcing its Rohingya residents to flee to neighboring villages. Many remain displaced under dire conditions with no clarity about their future.
Human rights organizations and field reports suggest that the militias are following methods similar to those used by the Myanmar military, including village burnings, land confiscation, and attempts to alter the demographic composition by settling Buddhist populations on Rohingya land.
The November 2023 Arakan military campaign against the Myanmar army allowed the militias to control 14 out of 17 towns in the state. The ongoing conflict has left Rohingya civilians subjected to violence, forced displacement, and persecution from both sides, adding to the effects of the 2017 military-led “genocide”, which drove nearly one million Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh.
