Muslim internally displaced people (IDPs) from the Kyauktalone IDP camp in Arakan State’s Kyaukphyu Township will be relocated to a new encampment starting on April 23, according to camp officials.

Junta officials had told the Muslim IDPs to move to a new location by the end of March, but the relocation date was postponed due to Ramadan.

The Muslim fasting period has now ended, noted U Maw Ni, manager of the Kyauktalone IDP camp, who added that the Muslim IDPs must relocate by May 15.

“There is still a little work to be done in the new place, but we are ready to relocate,” he added.

Each household will be given a house — reportedly made of wood floor and bamboo walls with corrugated iron roofs, and worth K2.5 million — on land plots measuring 40x30 feet at the new location, which is less than half a mile from the current camp.

The Arakan State military council is also building a temporary school, a clinic, and an administration office, as well as piping in water and installing power cables.

The Muslim IDPs must move to a new place, but some work has not yet been completed, said a Muslim IDP from Kyauktalone displacement camp who did not want to be named.

“I am not worried about drinking water at the new location. Utility poles have been erected but some homes have not yet been hooked up to electricity. The construction of roads and schools has not yet been completed. I don’t know why Muslim IDPs are being forced to relocate to a new place. The weather is very hot in the summer, so I am concerned for the health of Muslim IDPs,” he added.

When DMG contacted U Myo Min Tun, an administrator of Kyaukphyu Township, to find out more about the relocation of Muslim IDPs to a new place, he declined to comment.

More than 1,000 people from 363 households in Kyaukphyu town’s Ayarshi, Paik The, Taman Chaung and Pyin Phyu Maw wards were displaced to the Kyauktalone IDP camp in the aftermath of the intercommunal violence that wracked Arakan State in 2012.