[🇧🇩] Insurgencies in Myanmar. Implications for Bangladesh

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600 evacuated as Myanmar military fights anti-coup forces

Hundreds of Myanmar families were being uprooted from their homes on Saturday, a community organiser said, piling their belongings onto evacuation convoys to escape fighting between the military and anti-coup guerrillas...

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600 evacuated as Myanmar military fights anti-coup forces
Agence France-Presse . Pekon, Myanmar 15 June, 2025, 00:07

Hundreds of Myanmar families were being uprooted from their homes on Saturday, a community organiser said, piling their belongings onto evacuation convoys to escape fighting between the military and anti-coup guerrillas.

Myanmar has been consumed by a many-sided civil war since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, leaving more than 3.5 million people displaced according to United Nations figures.

Heavy combat has been raging since Monday around the village of Saung Nang Khae in the eastern state of Shan, according to locals and evacuation organisers.

Ramshackle convoys of tractors were piled with livestock, wheelchairs and suitcases on Friday as they hauled local families to temporary shelter in the village of BC Kone some 60 kilometres southwest.

On Saturday Khun Pyae Linn, the spokesman of the youth wing of the Kayan New Land Party which controls the enclave and which organised evacuation efforts, said ‘rescue operations are still on-going’.

‘We evacuated more than 600 people but there were other organisations that helped villagers too. So it could be over 1,500 villagers that were moved to safe shelters,’ he added.

The military and some of its adversaries had pledged a truce this month as the country recovers from March’s devastating magnitude-7.7 earthquake which killed more than 3,700 people.

But Anyne Zel, 24, said she had been forced to flee as artillery and air strikes pounded her home area — the second time she has been forced to evacuate in two years.

‘I want to ask them to stop the war. Every time they fight the victims are us, the civilians,’ she said on Friday. ‘I don’t even think about the future of our lives anymore.’

After four years of war, Myanmar’s military has turned to conscription to bolster its ranks after suffering stinging territorial losses against the myriad of anti-coup fighters and ethnic armed organisations opposing its rule.

But analysts say it is still far from defeat, with a superior array of military hardware supplied by its backers China and Russia.

Lone Phaw, a 63-year-old farmer, said the onslaught of fighting in Saung Nang Khae was so sudden that he and his wife abandoned their home with only a single piece of clothing each, some blankets, pots and a bag of rice.

‘We only had time to run when it happened,’ he said. ‘We can’t guess what our future holds.’​

 

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Rohingyas hired to fight Arakan Army: report

The International Crisis Group, a global non-profit think tank, in a report on Wednesday said that Rohingya armed groups were recruiting Rohingyas sheltered in Bangladesh camps in Cox’s Bazar and were being trained to fight Myanmar’s rebel group Arakan Army that now controls Rakhine State...

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Rohingyas hired to fight Arakan Army: report
Staff Correspondent 18 June, 2025, 23:53

The International Crisis Group, a global non-profit think tank, in a report on Wednesday said that Rohingya armed groups were recruiting Rohingyas sheltered in Bangladesh camps in Cox’s Bazar and were being trained to fight Myanmar’s rebel group Arakan Army that now controls Rakhine State.

The information came in the ICG report titled ‘Bangladesh/Myanmar: The Dangers of a Rohingya Insurgency’.

The report was based on field research in Bangladesh during February and March 2025, and on interviews with the Arakan Army and Rohingya armed group leaders, Rakhine and Rohingya activists, civil society leaders and politicians, and United Nations and NGO officials over a period of six months.

‘Rohingya armed groups, meanwhile, have already started carrying out attacks on the Arakan Army in Rakhine State and are training fighters in camps along the border. Further intensification of this insurgency would cause great harm to all concerned – Rohingya civilians, the Arakan Army and Bangladesh,’ said the report of the Brussels-based ICG.

Asked for comment, Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner top official Mizanur Rahman said that the allegations of training activities by the Rohingya armed groups in camps were completely ‘false’.

‘Anything happening on the Myanmar side is not our concern,’ he said, adding that they were not giving importance to any such Rohingya armed group.

The report predicted that the recruitment and training activity would heighten the risk of further bloodshed between the Buddhist majority and Rohingya Muslim minority within Rakhine State, as well as increase the likelihood that more Rohingya would flee the conflict across the border to Bangladesh.

The report also said that the Arakan Army’s defeat of the Myanmar military in northern Rakhine State had shifted Rohingya armed groups onto the front foot.

The report mentioned two Rohingya armed groups – Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organisation.

Meanwhile, other Rohingya groups claimed that they were preparing to join the fight in Rakhine State.

‘Bangladesh and others are trying to resolve [the repatriation issue] politically and we’re waiting for the results. If they can’t do that, then we will do it ourselves,’ the report quoted a senior RSO official as saying.

‘We will start a war against the Arakan Army, if they ignore our rights,’ the RSO official said.

The report said that there were also indications that the Myanmar military was planning to support Rohingya armed groups against the Arakan Army so as to weaken its rival.

‘In May, the regime reportedly dispatched a Rohingya man from Rakhine to Bangladesh for meetings with Rohingya armed group leaders in Cox’s Bazar. During these talks, the man promised that Naypyitaw would provide weapons if the armed groups could build up their forces sufficiently,’ the report added.

At the same time, the Bangladeshi government has started engaging tentatively with the Arakan Army, which controls Myanmar’s entire border with the country, the report said.

It said that mounting attacks by Rohingya armed groups in Rakhine were not only likely to undermine these talks, but could also heighten anti-Rohingya sentiment in Myanmar, damaging prospects for the repatriation of up to one million refugees.

The report recommended that Bangladesh should curb the influence of Rohingya armed groups in camps and step up dialogue with the Arakan Army.

Over 13 lakh Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh amid atrocities against them by the Myanmar military since 2017, according to government data.

In a letter to the RRRC in April, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees pressed for ensuring accommodation for 1.13 lakh more Rohingyas who entered Bangladesh between November 2023 and April 27, 2025.​

 

[Saif]

A Rohingya insurgency will only prolong Bangladesh’s refugee crisis

Since entering office in August 2024, Bangladesh’s interim government has taken several welcome steps towards refugee repatriation. Muhammad Yunus’ administration appointed a high representative for Rohingya affairs, opened dialogue with the Arakan Army’s political wing, and successfully lobbied...

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A Rohingya insurgency will only prolong Bangladesh’s refugee crisis

Thomas Kean
Published: 19 Jun 2025, 11: 03

A section of the Rohingya camp in Kutupalong in Ukhia upazila of Cox’s Bazar File photo

Bangladesh faces a growing threat that could undo years of diplomatic and humanitarian efforts on one of its top foreign policy priorities: resolving the Rohingya refugee crisis. The million plus refugees in Cox’s Bazar face worsening living conditions, squeezed by aid cuts and barred from earning a living. Armed groups operating inside the camps are recruiting frustrated and desperate young men with promises of returning to Myanmar through armed struggle over the border. Their target is the Arakan Army, the powerful ethnic Rakhine armed group that now controls much of Myanmar’s Rakhine State and draws its support primarily from the local Buddhist population.

While most refugees had long rejected these groups for their violent tactics, growing anger toward the Arakan Army and a deepening sense of hopelessness about the prospect of returning to Myanmar have made the camps increasingly fertile ground for recruitment. While many refugees remain sceptical about the armed groups’ real intentions, most say they now believe that insurgency is the only way to return home. This strategy of confrontation is not only doomed to fail – Rohingya armed groups are no match for the Arakan Army, which has wrested Rakhine State from the Myanmar military – it also risks derailing Bangladesh’s long-standing goal of refugee repatriation, and could plunge the region into a deeper and more complex crisis.

Since entering office in August 2024, Bangladesh’s interim government has taken several welcome steps towards refugee repatriation. Muhammad Yunus’ administration appointed a high representative for Rohingya affairs, opened dialogue with the Arakan Army’s political wing, and successfully lobbied the United Nations to convene a high-level conference on the side-lines of the General Assembly in New York this September. It also relaxed some rules on the refugee humanitarian response to make it more sustainable, such as permitting durable housing.

But while these diplomatic efforts deserve recognition, they are being quietly undermined by developments in the camps. Given the new situation in Rakhine state, the only way for the Rohingya to return to Myanmar is through negotiations with the Arakan Army, which now controls all the areas where refugees fled from, and the entire Bangladesh border. But the armed group – along with most refugees we spoke to – believe that elements within Bangladesh’s security agencies are allowing Rohingya armed groups to flourish. They point to the groups holding large meetings within the camps, sometimes even publicly thanking the authorities for granting permission. Individuals linked to the armed groups have also been allowed to meet with high-level visitors to the camps, deepening the perception that their activities are being tolerated, if not quietly enabled.

Whether this is part of a formal strategy or a breakdown in oversight is unclear, but the effect is the same: It fuels mistrust with the Arakan Army and weakens Dhaka’s hand at the negotiating table as the Rakhine armed group increasingly sees Bangladesh as speaking the language of diplomacy while allowing militants to operate freely. If that perception hardens, engagement will stall, and with it, any realistic prospect for repatriation.

The Arakan Army also enjoys strong support across Myanmar as one of the leading anti-junta forces. It is not only backing smaller resistance groups in Rakhine State’s periphery, but also has troops in the north and southeast of the country. If the Rohingya are perceived as fighting against the Arakan Army, they will de facto be seen by many in Myanmar as supporting the reviled regime. This could deepen communal hostility with the Rakhine people, and more broadly reverse nascent public acceptance for the Rohingya community in the country.

At least 120,000 more Rohingya have already sought refuge in Bangladesh over the past 18 months, fleeing fighting in Rakhine State, and the refugee flow could get far worse. The presence of Rohingya armed groups in the border area within Myanmar has coincided with an uptick in reports of human rights violations against Rohingya civilians from the Arakan Army. In northern parts of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, where the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) has launched attacks, the Arakan Army has responded with so-called “clearance operations”, targeting Rohingya villages suspected of sheltering insurgents. In some areas, the group has begun forming ethnic Rakhine militias, and warned nearby Rohingya communities to relocate, likely fearing they will be used as cover by militants. This paints a bleak picture for the possibility of repatriation, and the prospect will only worsen should the Rohingya insurgency grow.

Bangladesh must make a choice. If the government’s ultimate goal remains repatriation of Rohingya refugees, then the country must close the gap between policy and practice. That means reducing the influence of armed groups within the camps, creating an environment for credible civilian leadership to emerge among refugees, and staying the course on political engagement with the Arakan Army. It may also need to rethink its recent engagement with the regime in Nay Pyi Taw, which has sown mistrust with the ethnic armed group for little gain since the Myanmar junta is no longer in a position to facilitate repatriation.

International donors, too, need to rethink their role. Aid cuts, particularly the sudden withdrawal of USAID funding, are feeding the desperation that armed groups are exploiting. Continued underfunding will only exacerbate the problem. Maintaining food support and basic services such as healthcare and sanitation, but also education is essential. But policy shifts from Dhaka, such as legalising small businesses within the camps and creating other economic opportunities for refugees, would help to both reduce the dependence on foreign aid, and to attract more international assistance.

At the same time, the Arakan Army must prove it can govern for all communities in Rakhine state, including for the Rohingya minority. Despite some inclusion efforts, many Rohingya say life under the group’s rule is no better than it was under the military. Ending discrimination and violent reprisals against civilians following ARSA attacks, and ensuring equal access to livelihoods and services will be key to building trust. The group will also need to engage Rohingya leaders in Bangladesh to counter the growing perception among refugees that it is a greater enemy to the Rohingya than the Myanmar military.

The September UN conference offers Bangladesh an opportunity to reset its strategy and build support for a more coordinated approach in dealing with the Rohingya refugee crisis. But that will only be possible if trust can be restored, not just with international partners, but with the actors now shaping the future of Rakhine on the ground.

* For more, see Crisis Group’s new report: Bangladesh/Myanmar: The Dangers of a Rohingya Insurgency​