Squatters forcibly removed from Sittwe cemetery

By DMG 10 Mar 2022

DMG Newsroom
10 March 2022, Sittwe

Authorities removed squatters from a cemetery in Sittwe’s Dannyawaddy ward on Thursday, with about 100 junta soldiers, police, department personnel and municipal workers involved in forcing squatters out of the cemetery.

“We have evicted them because they were staying at a place where curfew is imposed, not because of their identities,” a police officer who was involved in the eviction told DMG on condition of anonymity.

An altercation during the eviction process saw squatter Ko Maung Tun Aye, who works as a bricklayer, detained.

“We don’t have any relatives. My husband is detained, and we have been evicted,” said Ma Oo Kyawt Yi, the wife of the detainee.

“I don’t know what to do,” she added. The couple have a child.

Another squatter, Daw Than Than Nu, said she had made the cemetery her home after she was displaced by fighting.

“We have seven children. I bought this place [at the cemetery] for 100,000 kyats by doing casual jobs while fleeing the fighting. I have nothing left,” she said.

Many of those squatting on the cemetery premises said they had bought the land.

“Almost all the squatters have bought the land from someone,” said a Sittwe resident who asked for anonymity. “So, I am suspicious that a gang has been squatting on unoccupied lands and selling them.”

DMG found that while hundreds of squatters had moved out of the cemetery, some remain at the sites of their demolished houses.

Squatters along the premises of Myanma Railways property in Sittwe were also recently evicted, on Wednesday.