After weeks of silence as Myanmar ’s military cracked down on civilians protesting against the 1 February coup, the Arakan Army (AA), a major player among the country’s more than two dozen ethnic armed groups, this week announced it was on the side of the people.“The current actions by the Burmese army and police are very cruel and unacceptable,” AA spokesman Khine Thu Khahe said on Tuesday (23 March), adding that “the oppressed ethnic people as a whole will continue to fight for their freedo

Five million young voters will be able to cast their ballots for the first time in Myanmar's election on Sunday – about 14 percent of the electorate.In a country that emerged less than a decade ago from near total isolation under military rule, the nation's youth defies easy classification. AFP spoke to a number of Myanmar's Generation Z about the challenges they face and what they hope the next government will bring.Rakhine AngerHistory student Wai Wai Tun, 19, can vo

An armed group in Myanmar's troubled Rakhine state confirmed Monday it had taken three election candidates of Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling party prisoner ahead of a November election already marred by mass disenfranchisement.Militant group the Arakan Army (AA) has for nearly two years been locked in battle against the military, fighting for more autonomy for the state's ethnic Rakhine population.Both sides stand accused of rights abuses, with hundreds killed or injured and some 20

More than 1.1 million voters in Myanmar's western Rakhine state will be disenfranchised in upcoming national polls, according to data released by the election commission Friday, a move that experts warn could fuel yet more conflict.Civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) is widely expected to be returned to power in the 8 November election – only the second since the country emerged from outright military rule.But with virtually all Rohingya Muslims st

Myanmar's military has sought to undermine the confessions of two soldiers who said they were ordered to "exterminate" Rohingya Muslims before taking part in the massacre of scores of men, women and children.Non-governmental organisation (NGO) Fortify Rights and the New York Times on Tuesday released details of the filmed interviews - seen by AFP - of Private Myo Win Tun, 33, and Private Zaw Naing Tun, 30, in which they described "wiping out" entire villages.The soldi

Rohingya refugees fleeing anti-Muslim persecution in Myanmar are being exploited by the Arakan Army to smuggle synthetic drugs into Bangladesh. The army, which is demanding greater autonomy for Myanmar’s Rakhine State, uses money from the drug sales to purchase arms and ammunition. It moves the drugs from production centres in Myanmar’s interior to Rakhine State, where the Rohingya make the arduous trek along refugee migration routes into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Myanmar's military has conceded its troops abused prisoners in Rakhine State after a video of soldiers battering blindfolded detainees spread on social media - a rare admission of wrongdoing by a force often accused of acting with impunity.The video, which emerged on Sunday, shows plain-clothed men punching and kicking the heads of handcuffed and blindfolded detainees.The five detainees had been arrested on suspicion of being Arakan Army (AA) insurgents and were being transferred to Rakh

Myanmar's military must be investigated for possible "war crimes and crimes against humanity" as a conflict with rebels in the country's northwest ramps up, a United Nations (UN) rights expert said Wednesday.The military is locked in an increasingly bloody civil war against the Arakan Army (AA), an insurgent group fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.Scores have been killed, hundreds wounded and some 150,000 people have fled their homes since the fightin

Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in Myanmar face a health "catastrophe" from the coronavirus pandemic, a rights group warned, as international calls grow for an end to fighting. Overcrowded camps with an estimated 350,000 people were "COVID-19 tinderboxes", Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

A Myanmar journalist faces up to life in prison for publishing an interview with a rebel group operating in the country's restive Rakhine state a week after the insurgents were classified as a terrorist organisation.The western region has long been a tinderbox of conflict between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army (AA), a group demanding greater autonomy for the state's ethnic Rakhine people.Clashes have left scores of civilians killed, hundreds injured and about 150,000 displaced