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The ‘Lost’ Villages of Myanmar’s Rakhine
A “river of blood” was how one survivor described the scene in western Myanmar. “I saw shooting. I saw mass killing.” Another told the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) how 20 relatives, including three children, had been killed in the 2024 attack on Htan Shauk Khan village.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said earlier this month that the Arakan Army (AA) “may have killed at least 170 Rohingya men, women, and children” in Hoyyar Siri (known as Htan Shauk Khan in Burmese) in Buthidaung Township. It described the May 2, 2024, attack as a “massacre”.
Buthidaung is one of the two townships in Rakhine State that is home to the majority of the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority in the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.
At least 40 villages in Buthindaung were burned down in April and May 2024 amid clashes between the AA, an ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar’s military junta for control of Rakhine, and junta forces battling to retain their hold of the township.
Both sides committed abuses against civilians during the clashes, according to HRW. The military junta’s forced conscription of Rohingya to fight on its behalf has also intensified violence against them.
The military and Rohingya armed groups began arson attacks in Buthidaung township in April 2024. By mid-May the AA had captured all junta bases, according to the think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The destruction of Buthidaung has previously been documented by Bellingcat.
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The AA has denied accusations that it massacred civilians in Buthidaung, claiming that those killed were junta soldiers and Rohingya militants.
Bellingcat emailed the United League of Arakan, AA’s political wing, about the alleged attack on civilians but did not receive a response at the time of publication. The United League of Arakan’s humanitarian office responded to Bellingcat after publication disputing the Human Rights Watch report and the allegation that Arakan Army personnel massacred Muslim civilians. Instead describing that the village became part of an intense military confrontation involving several armed groups, rather than a one-sided assault. Myanmar’s Ministry of Defence also did not respond to our questions.
Evidence of civilian harm in Myanmar is slow to emerge and difficult to obtain due to the military’s strict control of the region and the tight grip of armed groups such as the AA in areas they control.
“The mass killing could only be confirmed more than a year later,” the recent HRW report said, “when survivors eventually crossed into Bangladesh and found their way to the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.”
Aerial imagery shows that Htan Shauk Khan was almost entirely destroyed in May 2024.
Erasing Homes
A new investigation by Bellingcat has identified 115 villages in Rakhine State, similar to Htan Shauk Khan, as partially or completely destroyed since the February 2021 military coup that overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government.
The data points to a pattern of violence that leaves civilian areas uninhabitable and in some cases, erases them completely.
Several buildings were set on fire when the junta allegedly dropped a bomb on the Muslim village of Zu La on Nov. 3, 2024. The fire was captured nearby on NASA FIRMS.
Satellite imagery indicates that it was attacked again on Dec. 9, 2024. Visible smoke can be seen rising from the village.
Zu La is located in Maungdaw Township. Along with neighbouring Buthidaung, Maungdaw is home to the majority of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya.
Zu La, and the neighbouring village of Gone Nar, previously faced violence during the 2017 Rohingya genocide.
Satellite imagery from that year shows them completely burned to the ground.
They show signs of reconstruction after 2017.
But repeated attacks in 2024 destroyed the villages again.
Neither of the villages appears on the latest maps from 2024. These are produced by the United Nations mapping unit, based on Myanmar government maps.
Steve Ross, Senior Fellow at the US nonprofit Stimson Center who is leading the ‘Crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State’ project, told Bellingcat this is part of the military’s broader campaign to deny the existence of the Rohingya and erase identity in Rakhine.
Bellingcat contacted the Myanmar government but had received no response by the time of publication.
Villages in Mungdaw are inured to cycles of violence. Ywar Haung, a village south of Zu La, has stood barren since 2017.
So has Kan Kya, where the military built the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 (BGP5).
All four villages are among the growing number of Rakhine’s lost settlements.
Six of the 10 villages we found partially or totally destroyed in Maungdaw in 2024 aren’t marked on the UN’s township map.
Removing more villages from the map remains a possibility, Ross said. However, following this April’s elections, which critics dismissed as a sham, the military is eager to restore international credibility and avoid actions that might be seen as provocative, the expert told Bellingcat.
The AA announced the capture of Maungdaw when it seized BGP5 on Dec. 8, 2024.
And with that the armed group gained full control of Myanmar’s entire border with Bangladesh.
Shortly afterwards, the AA took control of the strategically important Ann Township in central Rakhine.
The armed group announced it had captured the headquarters of the Western Regional Military Command on Dec. 18, 2024.
It shared a video of the headquarters and nearby military installations burning.
Local residents in and around the township were trapped, displaced or forced to flee their homes due to the months-long fight for Ann.
According to reports, the military entered Pyaung Chaung village and burned it down on Oct. 31, 2024.
Satellite imagery from Nov. 1, 2024, shows large-scale damage in the village. There were reports that the military warned residents to evacuate the village a week before the attack.
Ross believes that the military’s intention has been to try to make Rakhine as ungovernable as possible if the AA gains full control of the state.
Nearby villages of Yat Thar Ywar Thit
and Pyaung Thay show similar evidence of destruction.
Sittwe city, the capital of Rakhine State, has become a focal area of fighting since late 2025. The city is in Sittwe township, one of the three townships still under junta control.
Su Mon Thant, Asia-Pacific analyst at Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), said capturing Sittwe would be highly symbolic for the AA as no non-state actor has yet taken control of a state capital in the country.
The AA already controls areas along an India-backed transport corridor in Myanmar that includes a port in Sittwe.
Sittwe is surrounded by water on three sides. Capturing it would be challenging, with the military maintaining naval superiority and building defences in and around the city to deter a potential AA offensive, Ross said.
On Dec. 27, 2024, the AA attacked the Kyauk Tan checkpoint near Sittwe on the highway linking the capital to Yangon, the largest city to the south of Rakhine.
There are many villages near the checkpoint.
Like Taw Kan
where, according to local reports, junta forces carried out an arson attack that destroyed 80 houses on Jan. 15, 2024.
Bellingcat found at least 13 villages near the checkpoint that had been destroyed, with only a few remaining structures. All but one of them were attacked in 2024-2025.
Less than 4km from the checkpoint is Yar Tan
which appears intact in a March 2024 Google Earth image
but several buildings look destroyed in high-resolution satellite image on Google Earth from March 2025.
Trenches and military outposts began appearing near the village around Nov-Dec 2024.
They grew as the months passed. However, due to a lack of updated high-resolution satellite images, we cannot tell whether these are currently in use or to what extent.
There are also villages that appear to have been replaced with defensive structures. For example, Kan Pyin Ywar Haung, for which the latest available high-resolution satellite image shows trenches on both sides.
Although such structures are clearly visible in high-resolution satellite imagery, lower-quality images can also help indicate whether a village was replaced with fortifications.
Kan Pyin Ywar Thit, located just south of Kan Pyin Ywar Haung, appears to have been completely destroyed; however, the same criss-crossing lines are not visible across the village.
Similar fortifications appear in other villages.
Defence infrastructure has replaced villages on the outskirts of Sittwe, making it more difficult for AA to advance towards the city, said Ross.
Bellingcat also found at least 10 villages partially or totally destroyed in Kyaukpyu Township since fighting intensified in February 2025.
Kyaukpyu, which has abundant oil, natural gas and marine resources, is also home to a junta naval base
As well as Chinese infrastructure projects that the AA fully or partially controls.
Nearly all the villages we found to be destroyed or damaged are within a 10km radius of the naval base.
In early March this year, clashes took place between the AA and the military near Say Maw village, located less than 5km from the base.
NASA FIRMS detected fire in the village and the surrounding areas on March 23, 2026.
The latest high resolution satellite image on Planet from April 2026 shows flattened buildings in the village.
A month earlier Saing Chon Dwein village, also less than 5km from the base, was reportedly burned down by the military.
The fire was caught on a Feb. 9, 2026 lower resolution satellite image
with burnt areas distinguishable the next day.
Like Sittwe, Kyaukpyu is surrounded by water, making it difficult for the Arakan Army, which lacks naval capabilities, to seize control. “AA has some advanced drones reportedly, but these areas also have jamming technology,” said Thant.
Methodology
The data was compiled using news reports, including social media channels, ACLED, satellite imagery and NASA FIRMS. The names of the villages were corroborated using the UN’s Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU), news reports and Planet Labs.
We only included areas where the destruction was clearly visible in high-resolution satellite imagery or significant enough to be detected in mid-resolution images. Our data is not exhaustive and the true number of affected villages is likely to be higher.
While it is difficult to ascertain whether the villages we found damaged or destroyed showed signs of reconstruction, at least five of them appear to show some buildings rebuilt in latest available satellite imagery.
Military Control Is Slipping
Last month, in the first election since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, the pro-military parliament chose junta chief Min Aung Hlaing to be the next president.
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According to research group Data for Myanmar, at least 65 townships were excluded from voting, including the 14 in the AA’s control. In Rakhine’s 17 townships, voting was held in only three still under junta control – Kyaukpyu, Sittwe and Manaung.
The AA resumed attacks against the junta in Rakhine in November 2023, ending a year-long ceasefire.
Data published by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and analysed by Bellingcat reveals a sharp increase in the military’s air and drone strikes in Rakhine. After the AA resumed its offensive, strikes rose from 30 in 2023 to 461 in 2024. By the end of 2024, the AA had captured all but three townships in the state.
Bellingcat found that strikes were then concentrated in the townships where the junta is fighting to maintain control. They decreased in 13 townships captured by the AA and remained unchanged in one during 2025. By contrast, attacks increased in Kyaukpyu and Sittwe, yet to be captured by the AA. Data for Manaung is unavailable.
ACLED’s data comes from multiple sources, including news reports and social media. While the data is not exhaustive, a broad trend can be identified. You can read further details and caveats about the data here.
Su Mon Thant, Asia-Pacific analyst at ACLED,explained that the military conducts clearance operations to prevent the AA from using villages as buffers or shelters – a tactic employed across the country. “At the same time, it’s a warning sign for other villages,” she said, adding that when one village is set ablaze, it sends a signal to other villages not to “accept, shelter or harbor” armed groups. Thant also noted that people are displaced when their village is destroyed, eroding support for armed groups as locals suffer the consequences of the fighting.
The AA has vowed to take control of all of Rakhine by 2027 and success may bring a geopolitical shift in the region. The armed group’s control over Kyaukpyu and Sittwe will give it significant leverage, with both India and China having infrastructure projects in the townships, Steve Ross of the Stimson Center told Bellingcat.
But neither side can control the state without further alleviation of civilian suffering, Ross said. According to UNHRC data, there are almost half a million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Rakhine as of March 30, 2026.
In Sittwe township alone, about 120,000 Rohingya have been displaced by communal conflict since 2012.
“People displaced from other parts of Rakhine State during the war are in Sittwe, hundreds of thousands of civilians,” said Thant, adding that neither side can control the capital without significant loss of life.
There are also 1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The futures of both the refugees and IDPs remain uncertain.
“Nobody can go home yet at this stage,” said Thant.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on July 6, 2026 to include response from representatives of the United League of Arakan.
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