International, have condemned Myanmar’s systematic persecution as “ethnic cleansing,” while
some activists warn of family disintegration as children, women, elderly, and disabled continue to
displace. In the years from 2023 to March 2025, Rohingya sea journeys to Malaysia and
Indonesia have increased, with reports of deaths or disappearances of people fleeing through
dangerous routes. The disintegration of the Rohingya community led to pervasive uncertainty;
many did not know whether their missing family members were whereabouts, dead or alive. It
has been also reported in the media that after defeating the military regiment from the areas, the
AA forces civilians, usually Rohingyas, to leave Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships.
Alongside resource extortion, the AA is forcibly displacing the remaining Rohingya from their
homes.
➔ Fragmentation of Families and the Disintegration of Kinship
Networks
In the latest episodes of violence that has been inflicted upon the Rohingya community, the
reports claim that the number of displaced people have gone up. As of 4 March 2024, the
UNHCR reported that 350,900 individuals had been displaced due to renewed fighting between
the AA and the Tatmadaw since November 2023. In May 2024, the news agency Al Jazeera, in its
news report, estimated that around 45,000 Rohingyas had fled to Bangladesh following
intensified clashes in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. Later, during November and
December 2024, an additional 60,000 Rohingyas reportedly crossed into Bangladesh amid
escalating conflict. Our testimony of Anowar Sadek, aged 25, who hails from Shidda Fara (Ward
no-5) of Maungdaw, but now displaced in Bangladesh, recounts the reasons for displacement. For
him, it was the daily violence and persecution carried out by both the AA and the Myanmar
military. For instance, he says that in 2024, the situation in his village rapidly deteriorated as both
groups intensified their attacks. These attacks resulted in widespread destruction: “Our homes
were set ablaze, our agricultural fields were destroyed, and innocent civilians, including children
and the elderly, were mercilessly killed.” Beyond the physical violence, the psychological toll
was immense. “We, he narrates in his own words, lived in perpetual fear of being caught in the
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