The number of displaced people (IDPs) from Kyaukphyu Township in Arakan (Rakhine) State has risen to around 4,000 and many of those are in urgent need of food, healthcare, and other aid.
The IDPs are sheltering in Kyaukphyu Township in the jungle and in other villages away from the fighting.
Currently there is just enough aid and temporary accommodation for the IDPs, but as their numbers increase limited access to aid is beginning to create challenges for aid workers. Already, children, elderly and disabled IDPs sheltering in Kyakphyu Township are in critical need of medicine.
Ko Aung Aung, head of the Kyaukpyu Township Emergency Aid Committee for War-displaced People, said: "Right now, their most urgent needs are food and medicine. Even for families who aren't war-displaced, livelihoods are already strained. The challenges are even more severe for those forced to flee due to conflict.”
There has been fighting in Kyaukphyu Township since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked a junta military vehicle near the Thit PokeTaung Dhanyawadi naval base in Kyaukphyu Township on 22 December 2023.
Since then, there has been ongoing fighting in the township, but it escalated on 20 February 2025 and has continued at similar levels since.
Since 20 February residents from about 20 villages in Kyaukphyu Township have had to flee their homes due to the threat of airstrikes and artillery shelling by the junta.
A woman who fled from one of those villages said to DMG: “We fled for our lives. We thought we were going to die. We were lucky to survive.”
As fighting has intensified in Kyaukphyu Township the junta has been imposing stricter restrictions on who can leave and enter the town, leaving residents trapped in the town and unable to evacuate.
