Ethnic Mro Murdered in Maungdaw, N. Rakhine

By Min Aung Khine 21 September 2018

SITTWE—An ethnic Mro man from the village of Thit Tone Na Kwa Sone in northern Rakhine State’s Maungdaw Township was murdered on Wednesday.

The victim, identified as Duu Lu (40), reportedly went to the woods near his village to put the cattle out to pasture on Wednesday. He did not come back and when villagers searched for him the following day, they found him dead with stab wounds some 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) north of the village.

“He took eight cows to pasture, and we only found six cows,” Maungdaw Township administrator U Myat Khaing told The Irrawaddy.

Police are investigating the murder, he said.

Lower House lawmaker U Aung Thaung Shwe of Buthidaung Township blamed the lack of rule of law in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships in northern Rakhine State for the killings, adding that security services are not sufficient for the safety of local ethnic people.

“Though [authorities] provide a security apparatus, it can’t protect ethnic people so, [they] will be continued to be killed in the future,” U Aung Thaung Shwe told The Irrawaddy.

“I proposed in the Parliament to form a militia with local villagers but it was rejected. Now, almost all the ethnic people have left their villages,” he added.

On August 3, last year, eight Mro people of Kaing Gyi village in Maungdaw were killed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, according to reports of state-run media.

State-run media has made several other reports about the murders of individual Mro villagers in Maungdaw since then.

A majority of the Mro ethnic minority live in the northern parts of Maungdaw with more Mro in the southern parts of Maungdaw of Seinpan Myaing, Shwe Baho and Kaing Gyi.