{"id":9987,"date":"2026-08-26T19:34:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/?p=9987"},"modified":"2026-08-26T19:34:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:04:56","slug":"the-2017-arsa-attack-genocide-and-the-refugee-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/2026\/08\/the-2017-arsa-attack-genocide-and-the-refugee-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2017 ARSA Attack, Genocide, and the Refugee Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Myanmar Spring Chronicle \u2013 Scenes from August<\/em> 25<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

(MoeMaKa), August 26, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2017 ARSA Attack, Genocide, and the Refugee Crisis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n

In the early hours of August 25, 2017, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked around 30 police outposts in northern Rakhine State. The incident came nearly a year after similar attacks on security posts in northern Rakhine in October 2016. In the aftermath, a combination of retaliation for those attacks, propaganda by the military, riot police and nationalist extremists, and years of anti-Rohingya hatred culminated in what followed in late August and early September 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the banner of \u201cclearance operations\u201d against ARSA militants, Myanmar security forces entered Rohingya villages across northern Rakhine State. In some villages, hundreds of people were shot and killed and homes were burned. These actions amounted to war crimes and acts described as genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2012, hostility had been steadily building against Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine State, who had been portrayed through propaganda as illegal immigrants to Myanmar. This atmosphere of hatred and desire for retaliation helped create the conditions for village-clearance operations involving war crimes and genocidal acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back at what happened, it appears that years of accumulated hatred and a desire for revenge had developed into plans within the Myanmar military not merely to eliminate ARSA, but also to clear Rohingya communities and their villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When security posts in northern Rakhine were attacked for the first time in October 2016, the military did not carry out clearance operations or killings on the scale later seen in 2017. ARSA may therefore have believed it could carry out a second surprise attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following ARSA\u2019s August 25, 2017 attack, the military apparently expected the NLD government to convene a meeting of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC), as provided for under the 2008 Constitution. The NLD government did not formally convene the NDSC. Instead, it held a special meeting involving senior military commanders as well as government leaders, including the president and State Counsellor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some observers believe the NLD\u2019s decision to avoid convening the NDSC and instead hold a special meeting added to military commander Min Aung Hlaing\u2019s resentment toward NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A senior military official later reportedly spoke informally about the August 2017 ARSA attacks. According to this account, after the August 25 attacks the military waited for instructions from the NLD government, but no order was issued for three days. The military then proposed taking approximately one month to conduct operations against ARSA in northern Rakhine, while the NLD government allowed only two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About two years after the events, the senior officer reportedly suggested that having to complete the operation within two weeks contributed to the high number of casualties, effectively placing some responsibility on the NLD government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The operations targeting ARSA members and their supporters involved not only the military but also police, riot-control units and other security personnel transferred from other parts of the country for three-month deployments in northern Rakhine. When some of these personnel returned to their original postings, people close to them heard accounts of what they had witnessed during the operations against ARSA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some security personnel who had served for three months in northern Rakhine reportedly witnessed mass killings in which even children, women and elderly people were not spared. Unable to accept what they had seen, some later described these incidents to people they trusted after returning home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local residents of northern Rakhine, including Rohingya civilians who were targeted during the operations alongside alleged ARSA militants, knew from the beginning what had occurred. It also became widely known that more than 700,000 Rohingya from the Buthidaung and Maungdaw areas crossed the border and sought refuge in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, ordinary people elsewhere in Myanmar did not know in detail about the mass killings and alleged genocidal acts committed by the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, the NLD government largely relied on the military\u2019s reports and accounts and rejected international media reports concerning atrocities and alleged genocide in northern Rakhine State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this period, Reuters journalists investigating the killings at Inn Din village came under scrutiny from military intelligence. Journalists investigating the case were lured to a meeting, arrested and prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. The Inn Din massacre was only one episode within the much broader events that occurred during the military operations in northern Rakhine at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled for their lives to Bangladesh, carrying children and elderly family members with them. The refugee crisis could not be resolved during the remaining three years of the NLD government. After the 2021 military coup plunged not only Rakhine State but much of the country into armed conflict, finding a solution became even more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the events of August and early September 2017, in which thousands of civilians lost their lives, became the subject of a genocide case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In late 2019, NLD government leader Aung San Suu Kyi personally appeared before the ICJ in The Hague, Netherlands, to present Myanmar\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the proceedings at the ICJ are against Myanmar as a state, rather than against a particular government, the military authorities continued defending the case after overthrowing the NLD government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remains unclear when the ICJ will ultimately decide whether genocide occurred. What is clear, however, is that even as the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh reaches its ninth year, a lasting solution remains far out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 2018 through the end of 2020, the NLD government was unable to successfully implement the repatriation of Rohingya refugees. The military, which seized power in February 2021, was likewise unable to carry out refugee repatriation through the end of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in 2024, the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed organization, captured large areas of northern Rakhine State and continues to administer those territories today. There have been no substantive discussions between the AA and Bangladesh, which hosts the Rohingya refugees, regarding their repatriation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the Min Aung Hlaing government, which continues to be treated as a state actor in Myanmar, maintains policies and positions on Rohingya repatriation that remain unacceptable to the United Nations, Bangladesh and the Rohingya refugees themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragically, before justice and accountability have been achieved for the killings committed against Rohingya civilians in 2017, northern Rakhine State\u2014like other parts of Myanmar since 2021\u2014has witnessed new alleged war crimes and mass killings, committed not only by the military but also by other armed organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myanmar Spring Chronicle \u2013 Scenes from August 25 (MoeMaKa), August 26, 2026 The 2017 ARSA Attack, Genocide, and the Refugee Crisis In the early hours of August 25, 2017, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked around 30 police outposts…<\/p>\n

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