The Rohingya crisis, long framed as a tragedy perpetrated solely by Myanmar’s military junta, has assumed a far more dangerous and complex character with the rise of the Arakan Army as a dominant force in northern Arakan State. Recent documentation by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s information wing presents compelling, albeit unverified, evidence that the Arakan Army has engaged in systematic abuses against Rohingya civilians on a scale that demands urgent international scrutiny.

The report documents over fifteen hundred alleged victims between 2022 and March 2026, including more than four hundred killed during the desperate Naf River exodus of August 2024 and thirty-five executed in Maung Ni village. These allegations, if substantiated, would expose the Arakan Army not as a liberating force but as an actor complicit in the very patterns of ethnic cleansing and communal violence that the international community has rightfully condemned in Myanmar’s military. The time has come for the global community to recognize that the Rohingya face threats from multiple directions and to hold the Arakan Army accountable with the same vigor applied to the Tatmadaw.

The Evidence of Mass Atrocities and Communal Targeting

The pattern of violence documented against Rohingya communities reveals a disturbing continuum of abuse that goes far beyond collateral damage in a military conflict. The Naf River tragedy of August 2024 stands as an indelible indictment of the Arakan Army’s conduct, with more than two hundred civilians drowning or being killed while attempting to cross into Bangladesh, their flight impeded by forces that showed no regard for the most fundamental principles of humanitarian protection.

The Maung Ni village massacre, where thirty-five civilians including pregnant women and religious figures were reportedly captured and executed, suggests a premeditated campaign to eliminate Rohingya presence from contested areas. The Arakan Army cannot credibly claim ignorance or attribute these deaths to the chaos of war, for the deliberate targeting of civilians, particularly those who remained in their homes after others fled, constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law. The world must demand that the Arakan Army answer for these atrocities, for its silence in the face of these allegations speaks volumes about its contempt for Rohingya life and its commitment to a vision of Arakan State that has no place for the Muslim minority.

Sexual Violence as a Systematic Weapon of Domination

Perhaps the most damning indictment of the Arakan Army’s conduct is its documented use of sexual violence as a systematic tool of terror and domination against Rohingya women and girls. The report records more than one hundred twelve cases of rape, gang rape, and sexual abuse in detention between 2024 and March 2026, with the true figure likely far higher given the profound reluctance of victims to come forward due to fear, stigma, and the complete absence of protection mechanisms.

This is not the random violence of undisciplined soldiers but a calculated strategy designed to humiliate, traumatize, and psychologically destroy communities, rendering them incapable of resistance or return. The Arakan Army’s leadership bears direct responsibility for cultivating an environment in which such abuses occur with impunity, and its failure to investigate, prosecute, or even acknowledge these crimes reveals a fundamental disregard for the dignity and rights of Rohingya women. The international community must insist that sexual violence investigators gain access to Arakan Army-controlled areas and that perpetrators, regardless of their rank or affiliation, face justice through appropriate accountability mechanisms.

The Evil Appropriation of Land and the Erasure of Rohingya Existence

Beyond the immediate violence, the Arakan Army has engaged in an evil, calculated campaign of property confiscation and redistribution that fundamentally undermines any prospect of safe and dignified return for displaced Rohingya families. The seizure of homes, farmland, businesses, and livestock, followed by their occupation or redistribution to others, constitutes a form of demographic engineering that seeks to permanently alter the ethnic composition of northern Arakan State.

This is not an incidental consequence of conflict but a deliberate strategy to erase Rohingya material claims to their ancestral lands and to create facts on the ground that will prove impossible to reverse. The Arakan Army understands that control over territory ultimately rests on control over population and resources, and its actions reveal a clear intention to ensure that Rohingya communities, even if permitted to return, will find their homes destroyed, their lands occupied, and their livelihoods destroyed. This calculated destruction of the material basis for Rohingya existence in Arakan State must be recognized as a crime against humanity, and those responsible must face prosecution.

The Regional Crisis and the Failure of International Accountability

The implications of the Arakan Army’s conduct extend far beyond Arakan State, threatening the stability of the entire region and particularly burdening Bangladesh, which continues to host a vast refugee population. Every act of violence against Rohingya civilians in northern Arakan pushes more desperate people toward the border, creating pressures that strain Bangladeshi resources and test its patience with a crisis that has now dragged on for nearly a decade.

For the Bangladeshi government, which has long advocated for safe repatriation, the Arakan Army’s actions represent a profound betrayal, turning the prospect of return from a humanitarian goal into a dangerous illusion. Yet the international community has been conspicuously silent on these abuses, still clinging to a simplistic narrative that casts the Arakan Army as a legitimate resistance movement while ignoring its systematic victimization of the Rohingya.

This selective outrage is morally indefensible and strategically self-defeating, for it allows the Arakan Army to continue its crimes without fear of consequence while perpetuating the very instability that prevents any durable solution to the refugee crisis. The United Nations and its member states must immediately mandate a comprehensive investigation into the Arakan Army’s conduct, impose targeted sanctions on its leadership, and make clear that accountability will extend to all parties that commit atrocities against civilians in Myanmar’s protracted conflict.