Myanmar's Rohingya caught in crossfire of civil war

With the civil war in Myanmar growing ever more complex, various religious groups in the country are being caught between warring factions who seek to exploit ethnic divisions to further their own aims.

This has been the case Myanmar's Rakhine State, where fighting has been raging for months, centering on the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung. The majority of the population in those townships is Muslim, mainly Rohingya, but Buddhist Rakhine also live in the area.

Eyewitnesses say that up to 200 people, including many women and children, were killed in an attack using drones and artillery near the border river Naf on August 5. This cannot be independently verified.

Doctors Without Borders issued a statement last week stating that its helpers had treated an unusually large number of Rohingya with war-related injuries who had fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh after the reported attack. The aid organization is active in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Caught between the front lines

With the cooperation of the Cologne-based Asia House Foundation, DW was able to speak with three Rohingya who live in Germany and have contact with relatives in the affected area. The interviewees do not belong to any organization and only speak for themselves.

Umar Farok reported that he had lost a total of 17 relatives in fighting between August 4 and 6. Two survivors made it to Bangladesh, he said.

Muhamad Husein pointed to main problems affecting Rohingya in Rahkine, saying they had to contend with forced recruitment and abduction, and struggle with the lack of supplies exacerbated by the blockade of all aid deliveries.

"People are living on the streets. They are not allowed into their homes, or their homes are destroyed. Hunger grips the entire community. The majority of the Rohingya cannot manage a single meal per day; they are eating banana leaves and other things for survival," Husein told DW.

Farok, Husein and one other Germany-based Rohingya, Zainul Mustafa, all told DW that they believe the Arakan Army (AA) is responsible both for the attack on August 5 and the wider catastrophic situation.

Conflict between ethnic groups in northern Myanmar

The Arakan Army (AA) is a rebel army fighting against Myanmar's ruling military junta. It serves as the military arm of the United League of Arakan (ULA), the political organization of the Buddhist Rakhine people.

The declared aim of the AA and the ULA is to create an autonomous region in Rakhine State that includes the Muslim population alongside the Buddhist Rakhine.

In a statement on August 7, the AA rejected any responsibility for the August 5 attack, and instead, pinned blame on the Myanmar military and "extremist Muslim armed groups" who they claimed fought against the AA, and also prevented civilians from fleeing the combat zones.

The statement named Rohingya militias such as the Arakhan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA), founded in 2020.

In 2017, around 750,000 Rohingya were forcibly expelled to Bangladesh by the Myanmar military.

Rohingya groups have been provided with weapons and financial support from Bangladesh's intelligence agencies and other interested parties for several years, according to a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in December 2023.

The report indicates Bangladesh wants these groups to help force the repatriation of the Rohingya to Myanmar. The three men who spoke with DW said that these armed groups do not represent the Rohingya.

Meanwhile, the armed Rohingya groups are now cooperating  with Myanmar's ruling junta, the State Administrative Council (SAC) on bringing Rohingya refugees back out of Bangladesh.

Recently, a comprehensive report by Human Rights Watch documented that Rohingya networks have forcibly recruited up to 1,800 Rohingya in refugee camps in Bangladesh and smuggled them to Myanmar to fight for the SAC against the AA. 

Myanmar's junta takes advantage of long-standing ethnic tensions

The SAC is the third party to the conflict in Rakhine State. It plunged Myanmar into a new phase of civil war with its coup in 2021.

Since October 2023, the SAC has been in retreat in various parts of the country. The AA, which is active not only in Rakhine but throughout northern Myanmar, is one of the SAC's strongest and best-connected opponents.

As the SAC is on the defensive against the AA, it is relying on the "divide and rule" strategy that the military has used "since 1948 to keep the ethnic groups in conflict with each other in order to govern them," Jacques Leider, a historian and lecturer at the Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient (EFEO), told DW.

He added the junta is forcibly recruiting Rohingya, along with the help of Rohingya militias, and pitting them against the AA in order to fuel the conflict.

Paul Greenings, former coordinator for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Rakhine, warned in an opinion piece for the Myanmar exile newspaper Irrawaddy in March 2023 that the "military regime is playing the ethnic card again in Rakhine State, and many Rakhine and Rohingya people are falling for it again."

Greenings also wrote in June 2024: "It is important to remember that the majority of Rakhine and Rohingya live and interact peacefully."

However, in a conflict characterized by hardship and decades of mistrust, statements to this effect are often dismissed as manipulation.

Twan Mrat Naing, the commander of the AA, claimed on X, formerly Twitter, in May, "our dedicated Arakan soldiers are committed to protecting and serving everyone, regardless of their religious or ethnic background."

But many Rohingya see the fact that the AA commander usually uses the term "Bengalis" to refer to Rohingya as an indication that the AA is pursuing a different goal. Rohingya see anyone who uses the designation "Bengalis" as denying that the Rohingya belong to the Rakhine state.

Rohingya Zainul Mustafa told DW that the AA's words and actions do not match.

"Their attitude towards Rohingya is the same as the Myanmar military's, or even worse. Their goal is to exterminate Rohingya completely from Rakhine and make it their own Rakhine country."

Analyst Leider, however, disagrees with this assessment. He pointed to other parts of Rakhine State under AA control, noting that Rohingya and other Muslim minorities there live alongside the Rakhine.

"What is happening in Maungdaw and Buthidaung is mainly the result of a confusing war situation," Leider added.

This explains, but of course, does not excuse, the violence against the civilian population.

However, Leider warned against fueling the already strong Buddhist and Muslim ethnonationalism through speculation and mutual accusations, saying this is ultimately reinforcing the divide and rule strategy of the SAC.

This article has been translated from German .

Edited by: Darko Janjevic