(COX’S BAZAR, March 12, 2025)–The Government of
Bangladesh and the Arakan Army (AA) should immediately
facilitate humanitarian aid and cross-border trade to reach
war-affected civilians in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Fortify
Rights said today. Evidence collected and analyzed by
Fortify Rights shows that the Myanmar junta has
systematically denied life-saving humanitarian aid to
civilians in need, including ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya
communities, causing avoidable civilian
fatalities.
The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres is scheduled to visit Bangladesh from March 13 to
16, where he is expected to visit Rohingya refugee camps and
discuss the humanitarian needs on both sides of the
border.
According to the U.N., more than 519,000
people are displaced in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and more
than two million are in urgent need of food, medicine, and
essential supplies. Recent cuts in U.S. foreign aid by the
Trump administration have exacerbated the humanitarian
crisis, furthering the Myanmar military junta’s
interests.
“Rights-respecting
countries should explore all possibilities to facilitate the
delivery of life-saving aid to communities in need in
Myanmar.” said Ejaz Min Khant, Human Rights Associate
at Fortify Rights. “A humanitarian corridor between
Bangladesh and Myanmar would enable vital aid and trade for
all communities. Failure to act will cost
lives.”
Fortify Rights
documented how the Myanmar military junta has imposed severe
restrictions on aid deliveries, directly resulting in
civilian deaths. The junta has also blocked trade routes,
exacerbating food and medicine shortages in Rakhine State.
The Trump administration reportedly slashed Myanmar’s
projected aid in 2025 by US$259 million, including US$170
million earmarked for humanitarian relief, which could have
devastating consequences on civilians trapped in conflict
zones in the country.
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Between August 2024 and February
2025, Fortify Rights interviewed 15 residents of Rakhine
State, Myanmar and newly arrived refugees from Myanmar,
including five women, in Bangladesh—including ethnic
Rohingya, Rakhine, Kaman, Chakma, and Barua individuals—as
well as U.N. officials and aid workers.
Documents
obtained and reviewed by Fortify Rights confirm
junta-imposed travel authorization bans for humanitarian
workers to deliver aid in Rakhine State.
Civilian
Deaths Due to Junta-Imposed Aid Blockade
While
the junta only fully controls three of the 17 townships in
Rakhine State, one is Sittwe Township, which includes the
capital—Sittwe—a key port city. This enables the junta
to effectively block deliveries of aid to Rakhine State from
elsewhere in Myanmar.
Junta-imposed restrictions on
aid have led to preventable deaths and may amount to war
crimes, Fortify Rights said.
Aung Tun, a 35-year-old
Rohingya father living in an internment camp for displaced
Rohingya in Pauktaw Township, told Fortify Rights how his
two-and-a-half-year-old daughter died in July 2024 of acute
diarrhea due to a lack of medical supplies and access to
heathcare. He told Fortify Rights:
I tried
to call [medical organization name redacted for security],
but they couldn’t send any medicine because the junta
restricted it months ago. My daughter was small. She
didn’t make it. She died within three hours [after the
onset of the diarrhea]. My wife and I were
devastated.
Aung Tun
recounted:
It happened suddenly. First,
some children in my neighborhood were affected. Their stool
went completely watery. It was very sad that there were no
medicines here. Some died soon after they first suffered the
diarrhea. Then, four adult men died in two days. They died
due to the diarrhea, and that they couldn’t get treatment
in time.
On available aid, Aung Tun
said:
There were only limited oral
rehydration salt sachets, and it was expensive for many
people to afford it. Some took oral rehydration sachets. But
still, their health situation was too serious; it didn’t
help them. They didn’t survive. Some others didn’t even
get time to take them. Their health deteriorated so quickly,
and they died.
Aung Tun estimated that 12
people died in this single outbreak due to the junta’s
blockade on medicine.
The
World Health Organization recorded more than 2,600 cases
of “acute watery diarrhea,” known as AWDs, in Rakhine
State between June 16 and October 26, 2024.
Maung Aye
Tun, 37, an ethnic Kaman man living in Thae Chaung
internment camp in Sittwe Township, also reported being
unable to receive medical care as a result of the junta
restrictions on humanitarian workers. Maung Aye Tun told
Fortify Rights:
Whenever I feel sick, or
my sons are, I go to the NGO [non-governmental
organizations] clinics. … Last month, I suffered severe
abdominal pain for four days. But I couldn’t see a doctor
as there were no doctors in the camp. … It has been around
four months now since [the humanitarian organizations
providing medical treatment] stopped coming to our camps and
treating the patients due to the junta’s restrictions on
their travel.
In February 2025, a U.N.
official in Bangladesh supporting refugees from Myanmar who
spoke on the condition of anonymity told Fortify
Rights:
Over the last few months, we’ve
been hearing more frequently from new arrivals that
they’re leaving Rakhine [State] not just because of the
violence and fighting, but also because of increasingly
limited access to food and healthcare. Unfortunately,
though, because Bangladesh still won’t allow us to
register new arrivals, accessing essentials like food,
medical care, and shelter here [in Coxs Bazar] is also very
challenging for them, and as the impacts of the U.S. funding
freeze start to take hold, we fear the situation will only
continue to deteriorate.
Another U.N.
official working in Rakhine State, speaking to Fortify
Rights on the condition of anonymity,
said:
Rakhine [State] faces an impending
food crisis with domestic production anticipated to meet
only 20 percent of food needs by early 2025. Restricted
access to seeds and fertilizers, harsh weather,
displacement, and ongoing conflict have decimated local rice
production, putting over two million people at risk of
starvation.
The official also
noted:
Since the clashes erupted between
the AA and the junta military in November 2023, the junta
military imposed strict restrictions in terms of
accessibility as well as movement. The junta military
administration blocked the main supply chains from central
Rakhine to northern Rakhine and later from central Myanmar
into northern Rakhine
State.
Humanitarians also stated that
junta authorities are denying or not responding to requests
for Travel Authorizations (TAs), which enable them to
deliver life-saving humanitarian aid to hard-to-reach and
vulnerable populations. An aid worker with an international
humanitarian organization in Maungdaw Township told Fortify
Rights that his organization has not received travel
authorizations for their work in Maungdaw since November
2023:
So we have had to halt field
activities. We applied for TAs several times to the [junta]
state government, but each time, they rejected it. They did
not provide a formal response, but that is their standard
practice. If we do not receive a letter, it means our
request has been denied. Later, we tried to approach the
township-based military commander’s office, but he did not
respond either.
A senior U.N. official
confirmed this practice, saying:
In April
2024, we submitted a letter to the township junta Military
Tactical Commander in Buthidaung Township requesting
permission to provide life-saving humanitarian aid to
civilians displaced. However, they never responded to the
request, which meant it was rejected. There was no
consideration of human suffering [of civilians] who lack the
most basic survival needs.
Fortify Rights
has a copy of the letter sent by the U.N. agency to the
junta on file. Without the travel authorization, aid convoys
cannot pass through the numerous military junta checkpoints
in the region to reach affected communities.
Fortify
Rights also obtained and analyzed several official documents
from the junta detailing the partial or complete denial of
TAs to U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations
operating in Rakhine State.
Economic Blockade: Rising
Prices, Deepening Hunger
Junta-imposed restrictions
on trade in and out of the state have further exacerbated
the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State. According to
Rakhine State residents, rice prices have doubled since
November 2024, reportedly due to the junta’s trade
blockade.
A November 2024 market analysis report
on Rakhine State by the Myanmar Information Management Unit
stated that the “total basket [of basic household
commodities] price was up 185% year-on-year, and vegetables
and hygiene NFIs [non-food items] were up roughly
300%.”
A November 2024 U.N. Development Programme report
further found that up to two million people in Rakhine
State are at risk of starvation due to the conditions in the
state. The report states:
Without urgent
action, 95% of the population will regress into survival
mode, left to fend for themselves amid a drastic reduction
in domestic production, skyrocketing prices, widespread
unemployment, and heightened insecurity. With trade routes
closed and severe restrictions on aid, Rakhine risks
becoming a fully isolated zone of deep human
suffering.
The fighting throughout
Myanmar has also led to a sharp drop in farming, further
affecting food security, including in Rakhine State. For
example, a Buddhist Chakma refugee in Bangladesh told
Fortify Rights:
Working in the field
during the war was challenging. We endured extremely
difficult days there [in Rakhine State]. It was almost
impossible to cultivate our crops due to intense fighting
between the AA and the
military.
Junta-imposed restrictions on
movement around Sittwe have disrupted the delivery of
essential services that would otherwise be distributed
statewide, including healthcare and goods. As a result,
displaced communities, including those in Sittwe’s Thae
Chaung internment camp, and residents are struggling with
limited medical care or supplies.
A Rohingya
pharmacist and drugstore owner who supports medicine
shipments to Rakhine State from Yangon—the commercial
capital of Myanmar—told Fortify
Rights:
A few months ago, I tried to send
two large medicine boxes to Rakhine [State] via Yangon
Airport cargo. However, the airport authority rejected the
package, saying it is prohibited to send medicine to Rakhine
due to an order from the [junta] government. … I stopped
trading with Rakhine State several months ago, and no longer
send medicines. … [N]o one can send them [medicine]. Due
to the [junta] government’s restrictions, sending medicines
to Rakhine State is very hard. There are many obstacles and
restrictions. The military has not allowed it since the
[renewed] fighting there began [in November 2023]. I know
there is a huge need for medicine in Rakhine State, but
it’s so risky and impossible for me to send
it.
The AA also bears responsibility for
the humanitarian predicament in Rakhine State, said Fortify
Rights, citing evidence
of arson attacks against Rohingya neighborhoods and a
massacre of civilians in August 2024.
The Rohingya
pharmacist quoted above added: “I already lost my home,
property, and a large medicine store in Buthidaung when the
AA burned it down in May 2024. I spent over 15 million
Myanmar Kyat [US$4,300] to evacuate my family from there. I
don’t have the capacity for more losses.”
A
Rohingya humanitarian worker added:
When
the Arakan Army attacked Maungdaw, they blocked transport
for goods from the 4-mile area. The Arakan Army blocked all
the access to the vegetables and fruit. Bangladeshi
authorities also block border trade. … People suffered
heavily from lack of medical treatment and the food
shortages there.
Bangladesh, Arakan Army
Must Act: Open a Humanitarian Corridor
With
Myanmar’s crisis deepening, Bangladesh and the AA must
take more urgent steps to cooperate and facilitate
humanitarian access and trade, said Fortify Rights.
In
February 2025, Dr. Khalilur Rahman, the High Representative
of the Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh on the
Rohingya Problem and Priority Issues, said at a public
seminar: “The day the AA raised its flag on our border, I
instantly realized it’s a new world — you got to deal with
them.”
More recently, in an interview with Sky
News that aired on March 4, 2025, Bangladesh’s interim
leader, Muhammad Yunus, said his transitional government was
involved in ongoing negotiations with the AA on the creation
of a “safe zone” for Rohingya refugees to return to
Rakhine State.
“Safe zones have
historically not been safe, and that would very likely be
the case in Rakhine State now for Rohingya people,”
said Ejaz Min Khant. “The conditions for Rohingya to
safely return to their homeland are not in place, but the
government of Bangladesh and the Arakan Army can ensure
humanitarian aid reaches all ethnic communities in
need.”
Humanitarian corridors
are designated and secure routes that allow for the safe
passage of humanitarian relief.
Bangladesh should also
lift restrictions on border trade with Myanmar to help ease
access to basic commodities for civilians in Rakhine
State.
International humanitarian law, also known as
the laws of war, is applicable to the situation in Myanmar
and obliges parties to the conflict in Rakhine State to
protect civilians and humanitarian aid workers. Denying
humanitarian aid to war-affected civilians is a war crime,
and those responsible for it can be prosecuted for war
crimes. Moreover, international humanitarian law protects
the right to freedom of movement for humanitarian aid
workers. Authorities may only restrict the right to freedom
of movement for aid workers in cases of “imperative
military necessity” in a limited manner and only
temporarily.
“The crisis in Myanmar
demands urgent global attention and action,” said Ejaz
Min Khant. “A humanitarian corridor between Myanmar and
Bangladesh would be a lifeline for civilians impacted by the
conflict.”
