Maungdaw — At the village of Kyikanpyin in Northern Maungdaw, 16 Rohingya men including some teenagers were arbitrarily arrested by the Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) during a raid jointly conducted with the military in the early morning on Thursday (Dec 29), it has been reported.

About 150 BGP and Military personnel besieged the Kyikanyin village locally known as Hawar Bil at about 4:00 am and indiscriminately arrested anyone encountered during the joint raid. All of the 16 men arrested are innocent people, according to the locals.

Reportedly, the administrator of Kyikanpyin, U Phyo Zaw Tun (a natala Rakhine extremist living at Aung Zeyar village), conspired with the BGP to launch a raid on the village to arrest the villagers whom he personally loathes.

“Earlier, people used to be alert of the raids and arrests by the military and the BGP. Off late, people have begun to try to live a normal life.

“And UNHCR and WFP provided some aids to the villagers of Kyikanpyin a few days ago. The UNHCR was also to provide aids to the villagers of Wa Peik (WaBek) on Thursday. So, some villagers stayed back in the village at night with the hope of having UNHCR aids on the next day.

“Taking advantage of the both situations, the BGP and the military acting on the arrest-list of aubmitted by the village administrator timingly launched a raid on the village and arbitrarily arrested 16 innocent people”, said U Aye Myint, a human rights observer, based in Maungdaw.

The people arrested on Thursday are:
(From the West hamlet of Kyikanpyin,)

1) Ibadullah (20), s/o Hassan
2) Faisal (19), s/o Abdu Salam
3) A 17-year-old son of Jalal Ahmed
4) Anwar Sadek (17), s/o Abdul Majid
5) Kabir (17), s/o Daw Mamtaaz
(These four are from the West hamlet of Kyikanpyin.)

(From middle hamlet of Kyikanpyin,)
1) Mohammed Salam, 47
2) Karimullah (16), s/o Zakir Ahmed
3) Aamir Safa (17), s/o Salimullah

(From Wapeik hamlet of Kyikanpyin,)
1) Noor Islam (25), s/o Hamid Hussein
2) Mohammed Johar (21), s/o Sheikh Ahmed
3) Sayed Ahmed (40), s/o Fazal Ahmed
4) Hassan (31), s/o Rashid Ahmed
5) Safar Alam (20), s/o Shomsul Alam
6) Iman Hussein, 50
7) Rafique (?), s/o Khalu
8) Mohammed Alam (?), s/o Daw Habiya Khatun

The people arrested are reported to have been being interrogated in the BGP Headquarter. The villagers are still hopeful that they will eventually be released as they feel that they are very much innocent.

The Myanmar military began a full-on offensives on the Rohingya community at large in northern Maungdaw on the pretext of ‘Region Clearance Operation’ as the aftermaths of the raids by a rebel group — born out of decades-long persecutions which has now been identified as Harakat Al Yakin or the Faith Movement — on three Border Guard Police posts in Maungdaw on October 9, 2016. Since then, at least 1,000 civilians have been arrested, tortured and subjected to arbitrary detentions/long-term imprisonments without fair trials.