According to sources two of the youths were arrested on 9 January and the other two were arrested on 16 January.

Khaing Kaung San, the director of the Wanlat Foundation, said that two youths who had returned from Yangon were staying at the Naing Guest House in the Mingan quarter of Sittwe when police arrived, put blindfolds and handcuffs on them and took them away.

He said: “As far as I know they came from Yangon and stayed at Naing Guest House. They were taken by the police for interrogation. They come from Hpakant in Kachin State in eastern Burma where they used to work for a gem-stone factory.”

He also said that he did not know why the youths had been arrested.

Narinjara News asked at Sittwe police Station if the youths had associations with the Arakan Army, but the police refused to answer any of Narinjara's questions.

Previously, on 9 January, two youths who were allegedly members of the Arakan Army were arrested in Taungup and handed over to the army, according to local police sources quoted in an article in the Lady News Journal.

The article said that both of the arrested youths were preparing to catch the Aung Thit Sar express bus to Rangoon when they were arrested and that two of their associates had managed to evade the police.

An eye-witness said that the arrested youths were then bought before Taungup Court on the same day and taken away in an army vehicle at about 11.30am. A police officer, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the army blindfolded the youths before they took them away.