The source told the Kaladanpress that group of 14 armed men in full uniform forced their way into the homes of Shuna Meah, 50; son of Abdul Gaffar, and Lalu, 55; son of Ali Akbar, by breaking the doors on Sept. 8 at about 1:30 am. Once they gained entry the robbers confined the families into a room of each of their homes severely beating them. They robbed them of 30M Kyat apiece, and all their gold, told a close relative of one of the victims that didn’t want their name used.

The relative told of the men firing their weapons into the air after the robbery “to threaten the villagers that were approaching”.  The men spoke fluent Burmese, remarked a village leader who was in the village at the time of the home invasion. The leader also didn’t want their name used for security concerns.

After hearing the sound of automatic gunfire police from a police base only 600 meters away came to the village to investigate. There was a brief search in the surrounding forests for the robbers but they men had already slipped away. Every night there are army patrols in the area but yesterday night there was no such patrol, said Anwer (not their real name), who is employed as schoolteacher in the village.

Mahamud, a local businessman, questioned how the armed men could get their uniforms and “dare to commit the robbery” if they were not in affiliated “with local security forces”.

Just five days earlier a local militia unit in full uniform and brandishing rifles allegedly robbed 20M Kyats and gold from a Rohingya family in Sombala village, Maungdaw Township. The victims reported the robbery to the nearby police camp but so far nothing has been done.

The robberies are “a new tactic to give trouble to the Rohingya community” so they “flee from their native soil in Arakan state,” said one Maungdaw town youth that preferred not to be named.