A New Year’s Eve drone attack killed seven civilians and injured four at a Hindu temple near Myanmar’s Bago Region’s Phyu Town, according to Arakan Army sources. Other sources confirmed that the Myanmar Army launched airstrikes and the drone attack in at least five places in Myanmar on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, killing at least 20 people, including the temple attack in Bago, which borders the Rakhine region, now over-run by the rebel Arakan army.
Myanmar Hindu Union released a statement denouncing the targeting of a Hindu religious site and the Hindu community. “One can only wait and watch to understand why this happened. This could have been a collateral damage inflicted in a war zone. But one is also reminded that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army had in 2017 massacred some 99 Hindus in Rakhine state,” said Maj Gen Alok Deb, former deputy director general of the Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis.
While massacring Hindu villagers, the ARSA had reportedly proclaimed that they believed the unarmed Hindu minority and Arakanese or Rakhine people to be “the same”. The Arakan Army has long been claiming that Rohingya Islamist groups, some of whom are suspected of being based out of Bangladesh, have been fighting them on behalf of the Myanmar Army and have carried out a number of terror strikes against civilians. There is a small population of Hindus living in Rakhine as also in other parts of Myanmar. Their temples in many places often resemble Buddhist temples, though in places like Yangon some temples also bear the distinct imprint of South Indian or Bengal temple architecture.
Armed drones, mostly of Chinese make, have been used by all sides in the conflict in the Rakhine state as well as elsewhere in north Myanmar, where three rebel armies have joined hands to combat the Myanmar army. Drone warfare is supposed to help focus on the strikes, but use of drones often without sufficient human intelligence creates its own set of problems. The restive Rakhine province of Myanmar borders Burman majority areas to the south and Bangladesh’s Cox Bazaar and India’s Mizoram to the north. While Rohingya refugees have usually escaped the conflict by migrating to Bangladesh, some Arakanese (also called Marma) and Zo people have gone as refugees to India.
“The Arakan Army has had remarkable successes.The Chinese have opened up links with all sides. They always had good working relationships with the Myanmar Army, however they have not ignored the rebels either. Their interest is in the investments they have made in Myanmar and safe and secure borders,” said Udai Bhanu Singh, senior researcher specialising on Myanmar and Southeast Asia, formerly with the IDSA.
The tiny Hindu population of Rakhine has largely stayed out of the conflict between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar forces, though they are believed sympathetic to the Arakanese cause. Analysts pointed out that the Myanmar Army has a record of human rights abuses. Reports released by human rights activists last year alleged that Churches, Buddhist temples and monasteries have been regularly hit by Myanmar Air Force and civilians massacred by the Army during the ongoing war.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tallies political arrests and attacks, at least 4,416 people have been killed by security forces since the 2021 takeover. The AAPP also claims that in the four months from Aug. 1 to Nov. 30, 2024, Myanmar military airstrikes throughout the country killed approximately 240 people. A 2023 report by the International Commission of Jurists, covering the period through April, counted 94 major Buddhist religious sites and 87 Christian ones destroyed or damaged nationwide.
