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What Happened at Htan Shauk Khan in Myanmar’s Rakhine State on May 2, 2024?

The Arakan Army was accused of slaughtering civilians. But residents say that air strikes and shelling on the village caused the fatalities.

New Htan Shauk Khan village at Buthidaung in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

The Arakan Army (AA)’s military campaign to liberate the Arakan region from the Myanmar military has sparked allegations and counter-allegations of killings and arson by the warring sides. Among the most recent cases is a massacre that reportedly happened at the Rohingya Muslim-inhabited Htan Shauk Khan village in northern Rakhine State’s Buthidaung Township, where the AA has been accused of butchering innocent civilians two years ago.

Human rights organizations have alleged that the AA killed at least 170 residents of the village, including women and children, on May 2, 2024, during a battle with the Myanmar military. The report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) offers details of the incident based on the accounts of some survivors, who were able to duck for cover and flee to Bangladesh.

Htan Shauk Khan or Hoyyar Siri, as the village was also known, no longer exists. Residents who survived have established a new village named New Htan Shauk Khan around two miles north of the original settlement.

The Diplomat visited New Htan Shauk Khan village on February 8 this year and interviewed three residents who narrated the sequence of events that unfolded on the morning of that fateful day.

What happened on May 2, 2024?

Mohammad Juloddin, the village chief of New Htan Shauk Khan village, claimed that the original settlement inhabited by 914 people had been “disturbed” since mid-2023, when the Myanmar military, in collaboration with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), began forced conscription of Rohingya youths. The objective was to raise a formidable force to defend the township against the advancing AA that had already liberated a vast swathe of territory in Arakan. The village had many people who were staunch supporters of the ARSA, he said.

Village chief Mohammad Juloddin (front, center) and other residents of New Htan Shauk village in Buthidaung Township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, being interviewed by the author. Credit: Rajeev Bhattacharyya

According to Mohammad Juloddin, a “large chunk” of ARSA functionaries and trained recruits were stationed in the village for several months. It was evident that the AA, which was closing in on the village would capture the two military establishments in the township, including Infantry Battalion 551.

“At 8 a.m. on May 2, there was shelling and airstrikes on our village by the Myanmar military because it assumed that the settlement had already been captured by the Arakan Army. After some time, a large group of Myanmar military personnel and their families from Infantry Battalion 551, numbering around a thousand, entered our village with weapons even as we were thinking of relocating to safer places,” recalled Mohammad Juloddin.

“The whole village was burning,” he said. “The Arakan Army had also started to announce over a loudspeaker from the neighboring village of U Hla Phe, requesting residents to abandon the village. There was complete chaos as residents began to flee in all........

© The Diplomat