Around 10 vessels extract sand from the island every day, and the shore is eroding away, said the chairman of the Rakhine Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association, U Yan Naung Soe, who called on authorities to put a stop to the illegal sand extraction.

The regime has been forcing internally displaced people (IDPs) to return to their homes while junta troops are still deployed near their villages and the regime has not yet cleared landmines, said AA spokesman U Khaing Thukha.

The Arakan Front Party (AFP) has registered with the junta-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC) for the national election slated for later this year, the state-run Myanmar Alinn daily reported on Tuesday.

Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing made the remarks during a meeting with local businesspeople at U Ottama Hall in the Arakan State capital Sittwe on February 27, the junta-controlled Myanmar Alinn daily reported.

When the Myanmar military and the AA observed an informal ceasefire in late November, the military promised to release the detained Arakan civilians within two months, said U Khaing Thukha.

Fierce clashes took place along the Myawaddy-Waw Lay road between junta troops and KNLA-led resistance forces from February 22-24, and Pa Law Ta displacement camp was hit by stray bullets and artillery strikes, forcing displaced people there to flee the camp.

Myanmar’s military regime has signalled that it plans to move forward with the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees who fled Arakan State amid brutal military crackdowns in 2016 and 2017.

 AA spokesperson U Khaing Thukha said junta soldiers have threatened local residents in Taungup, Thandwe and Maungdaw townships not to associate with, communicate with, or provide support to the ULA/AA, which the regime has called an illegal organisation.

Sixty-eight male and 437 female aspiring nurses are currently studying at Sittwe’s Nursing and Midwifery Training School.

A private vehicles supervisory committee in Arakan State’s Thandwe Township, under the junta-controlled Thandwe District transportation department, is pressuring tuk-tuk (autorickshaw) drivers to register with it and join a tuk-tuk association to be formed by it.

In response to a regional rise in cases of the new Covid-19 Omicron subvariant XBB, Myanmar’s Health Ministry has urged health workers and the public to exercise caution.

The ALD central committee meeting held in Kyaukphyu was attended by the party’s central executive committee members, central committee members and township committee members, totaling 31 in all.

Some political prisoners and other long-incarcerated individuals in Arakan State are in poor health and require medical treatment, according to family members.

The fighting was reported at around 6 a.m. on February 25 after the anti-regime forces seized control of the Myoma police station in downtown Phayathonsu.

Kandawgyi Lake, a major supply of water to the Arakan State capital Sittwe, is drying up, and town residents are concerned about an inevitable water shortage during the coming hot season.

More than 2,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) taking shelter in Minbya town returned to their homes on Thursday after the regime gave them 500,000 kyats per household and told them to return home.

The passport office in the Arakan State capital Sittwe remained closed on Friday though the junta’s Information Ministry said passport offices across the country would reopen on February 24.

The IDPs use the lake in Myet Hle Village for drinking water during the rainy and winter seasons, but the water in the lake has dried up and the villagers are no longer allowed to use it.

A QR code system has been introduced to the border trade with Bangladesh through Arakan State, aiming to facilitate legal trade, systematically monitor trucks carrying goods under export licences, and facilitate inspection of goods, according to Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce.