Myanmar Spring Chronicle – November 7 Overview
(MoeMaKa, November 8, 2025)
Rakhine State under Blockade and Airstrikes
For years now, the military junta has restricted shipments of food, medicine, and consumer goods into Rakhine State, while also blocking the export of its agricultural and marine products to other parts of the country.
Since the Arakan Army (AA) controls most of Rakhine’s territory, the junta has effectively imposed an economic blockade by cutting off land and river transport routes that connect the state to other regions. Access points from Magway, Bago, and Ayeyarwady Regions have been shut down, preventing goods from entering or leaving freely.
While some trade continues through smuggling routes—with goods carried covertly or civilians sneaking out through restricted zones—the costs have soared. Smugglers demand high fees, transport routes are circuitous, and by the time products reach markets in Rakhine, prices have risen sharply compared to their original value.
Inside Rakhine, employment opportunities are scarce, and incomes have fallen dramatically. People face the contradiction of low earnings and soaring prices, leaving the majority struggling to make ends meet.
Farmers are also suffering: their rice harvests cannot be sold outside, and with limited local purchasing power, prices have collapsed. Meanwhile, ordinary residents find that even basic necessities are unaffordable.
Though detailed information on people’s living conditions and health is scarce, local Rakhine media recently reported that displaced civilians who fled from Sittwe to the Kyauktaw Township’s Gara displacement camp are going door-to-door begging for food. The report described parents walking from village to village with their children, pleading for enough to survive.
The junta currently controls only parts of Kyaukphyu and Sittwe Townships, while about 90% of Rakhine State is under AA control. By cutting off trade routes—both river and road—the junta has created a humanitarian crisis.
AA itself, though it governs most of the state, has not been officially recognized as a legitimate administration, meaning it can only import goods in limited quantities through border crossings. Some supplies, such as rice and cooking oil, trickle in from India’s Mizoram State via Paletwa, but transport to central and southern Rakhine remains costly and difficult.
In Sittwe, AA has refrained from major offensives for now. Reports indicate that food, fuel, and essential goods enter the city under a controlled quota system managed by the junta, which distributes supplies through rationing. With nearly all jobs suspended, incomes have vanished, and prices are unaffordable — leaving residents barely able to survive amid shortages of everything.
In some neighborhoods, abandoned houses left by displaced owners are being torn apart and sold for firewood. In others, homeowners themselves dismantle parts of their own roofs and walls to use as fuel.
There is no clear news on conditions in neighborhoods like Aung Mingalar, home to Sittwe’s remaining Muslim (Rohingya) residents. Since the 2012 communal violence, that quarter has been sealed off under military and police security, with residents surviving mainly on aid from domestic and international agencies. Across the river, in camps like Thechaung and Dar Paing, Rohingya refugees have lived in isolation for over a decade. The renewed civil war has only deepened their suffering, leaving tens of thousands stranded once again.
While Rakhine has not yet faced a full-blown famine or epidemic, people are grappling daily with airstrikes and fear of disease. On November 7, junta aircraft bombed two villages—Yoe Ta Yote and another nearby—in Pauktaw Township, killing five civilians and injuring nine.
Although AA controls nearly all of Rakhine on the ground, it lacks air defense systems capable of stopping such attacks. The junta claims to target only “military positions,” yet the victims are overwhelmingly civilians. Schools, monasteries, and even private education centers have been hit, killing and injuring students.
For those who can afford it, the only escape is by air travel to safer cities like Yangon, Mandalay, or Pathein. But for most people, poverty traps them in place — unable to flee despite constant bombardment, hunger, and fear.
They remain in Rakhine, struggling to survive under siege — in a land where the sky itself has become a source of terror.