By Rohingya Eye
February 18, 2017
Maungdaw –The displaced locals at the village of
‘Kyikanpyin’ will likely be able to return to their original places according
to the verbal permission given by the Border Guard Police (BGP) in Maungdaw on
Friday (Feb 17) afternoon, sources have reported.
The Myanmar military and the BGP conducted sporadic
attacks on ‘Wapeik’ hamlet of the village of ‘Kyikanpyin’ in northern Maungdaw
and burnt down the locals’ homes in October 2016, while ‘Middle hamlet’ (of
Kyikanpyin) was entirely removed with the order of the BGP Commander ‘Brigadier
General Thura San Lwin’ on October 23, 2016, displacing several hundreds of
local people in the village.
At around 2:30 PM on February 17, ‘Brigadier General
Thura San Lwin’ summoned the displaced people from these two hamlets for a
meeting and told them they could return to their original places.
“The BGP Commander ‘Thura San Lwin’ said that they had to
burn down homes in the Wapeik hamlet and expel people from the Middle hamlet
because the terrorists were hiding in there and we could now return to our
original places. According to him, the villagers of Wapeik can rebuild their
houses, but the villagers of the middle hamlet can only repair their houses as
they were not burnt down but damaged by the Natalas, illegal Rakhine settlers.
Besides, some displaced families of Wapeik whose houses
were near to the BGP headquarter won’t be able return to their original lands
but will be relocated somewhere else. He also threatened the people attending
the meeting that the whole Kyikanpyin will be wiped out from the map if
incidents like October 9, 2016 attacks happen again”, said a local, who
attended the meeting on the condition of anonymity.
“However, we are still skeptic. We don’t know if we are
permanently allowed to return to our original places or it was just an attempt
to create news headlines on it and reduce international pressures,” he added.
During the meeting, the BGP Commander also accused three
ordinary villagers of Kyikanpyin as people linked with insurgents in the
region. Locals have confirmed them to be just simple and innocent people
targeted and blacklisted by the BGP because they met with the UN-led Diplomats
on November 2 and other UN representatives. They are:
1-Salimullah (s/o) Abdu Gaffar, a shopkeeper from the
middle hamlet
2-Shafiur Rahman, a volunteer school teacher from Wapeik
3-Haarsoo, a fishery pond owner from Wapeik
Although the BGP Commander allowed the displaced people
of Wapeik to return their home lands, the village administrator of Kyikanpyin,
U Zaw Phyo Tun (a Rakhine), stopped the people on the way to the northern part
of Wapeik, which is the main section of the village, mentioning that the
village section is near to ‘Aung Zay Zayar’ village, an illegal Natala Rakhine
settlement.
At around 6:45 PM yesterday (on Feb 17), the house of
Hussain (son of) Abdu Karim at the Middle Hamlet was set on fire. When the
neighboring Rohingya villagers rushed to the place to extinguish the fire, they
saw a group of Natala Rakhine extremists including the one identified as U Tun
Kyi (27), s/o U Thein Maung fleeing from the scene on motorcycles. Earlier, at
around 6:00 PM, a Rohingya from the Kyikanpyin village also witnessed the group
of Rakhine extremists sitting by the road before the house set ablaze later.