Food shortages reported in rebel-controlled areas of Myanmar’s Chin state

Food and medicine shortages in two townships in Myanmar’s Chin state have worsened in the six months since the Arakan Army took control, causing most residents to leave the area, aid workers and residents said.

The ethnic rebel Arakan Army, or AA, drove junta forces out of Paletwa and Samee townships on Jan. 14. 

A Paletwa resident, who requested not to be named for security reasons, told Radio Free Asia that people in the township’s urban area have been trading pigs and cattle for rice and other consumer goods over the last several months.

“People living in the urban areas can’t travel at all,” he said. “They have no salt, cooking oil or fish paste. They are facing many difficulties in traveling and living.”

The AA has been fighting the military junta as it seeks self-determination for the Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population in western Myanmar.

In Paletwa, ethnic Chin residents have had to seek permission from the AA to travel from their homes to their farms in the township’s rural areas, residents told RFA. That has created difficulties for residents trying to make a living, they said.

RFA was unable to contact AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha for comment on the shortages. 

For the last seven years, Paletwa and Samee township residents have been importing fuel and basic consumer goods from India’s Mizoram state through the Kaladan River, which flows into Myanmar.

But last month, an influential Indian civil society organization – the Central Young Lai Association – called for a halt to the transport of goods from Mizoram state to AA-controlled areas in Chin state, citing the AA’s treatment of ethnic Chin people.

That has caused a severe shortage of fuel and basic foodstuffs in northern Rakhine state and in some areas of Chin state, residents said.

Since January, many residents have since taken refuge in Mizoram state, while others have moved through neighboring Rakhine state to Myanmar’s commercial capital, Yangon.

Due to unstable phone lines and internet communication, the exact number of residents left in Paletwa and Samee townships was unknown. But relief workers said only one-third of residents are still living in the urban areas of the two townships.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed.