New Delhi: With fighting intensifying, India has asked all its citizens to immediately leave Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where Junta forces are on the defensive from the rebel Arakan Army, which has captured several key outposts and townships.
A travel advisory issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) noted that Rakhine state was facing a deteriorating security situation with “disruption of means of telecommunications, including landlines, and severe scarcity of essential commodities”.
While Indians were advised not to travel there, the MEA also urged citizens who are already in Rakhine state “leave the State immediately”.
Last week, on the third anniversary of the Junta’s coup, India had said that it was concerned at the “deteriorating situation in Myanmar, which has direct implications for us”.
India had several long-term development aid projects for connectivity in Rakhine state, but most of them have been in deep freeze for the last three years.
The military junta has faced its biggest challenge in Rakhine, where the Arakan Army, which is the armed wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority, called off a ceasefire last November.
As part of an alliance of ethnic minority armies known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, the Arakan Army has been attacking junta outposts and scored major victories against the military. which had ousted the civilian government in February 2020.
In the latest fighting, more than 260 Myanmar soldiers fled into Bangladesh to escape the Arakan Army’s onslaught on border outposts.
The Arakan Army claimed to have captured two Myanmar junta battalion headquarters in the last seven days.