As bullets smashed into the walls, the residents of Alecheung village were jolted from their sleep and fled leaving everything behind – civilian victims of a crackdown by Myanmar's army on ethnic Rakhine militants in an area already concussed by violence."I just ran...

In northern Rakhine state, the refugee crisis is not the only worry on the minds of the Myanmar government. On 4 January, also Independence Day in Myanmar, Arakan Army militants killed 13 people and wounded nine others in Rakhine. According to local reports, the insurgents attacked four police posts in the Buthidaung area. The attacks by the Arakan Army reveals a deeply divided state, which has been marred by various other ethnic conflicts.

Myanmar has called on its military to "launch operations" against ethnic Rakhine rebels behind a deadly attack on four police stations last week, a government spokesman said Monday, as a surge of violence forces thousands more from their homes.The country's troubled western Rakhine state has seen a series of clashes in recent weeks between security forces and the Arakan Army (AA), an armed group calling for more autonomy for the state's ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population.T