The Arakan Army (AA) captured Kyeintali town in Gwa Township in southern Rakhine State in western Myanmar on Wednesday morning.
Kyeintali is just 67 km from Gwa, the southernmost town in Rakhine State bordering Ayeyarwady Region.
The AA launched attacks on a junta checkpoint in Chin Kwin Village outside Kyeintali on Saturday. After two days of fierce assaults on Monday and Tuesday, the town fell on Wednesday morning, a Gwa resident close to the AA told The Irrawaddy.
Some employees of the General Administration Department (GAD) who tried to flee the fighting were shot dead by junta troops, he said.
“Junta troops were positioned at the police station, the GAD office and the municipal office on a hill. GAD employees fled when the AA attacked with drones. Some were killed as junta troops pursued and shot them. Junta troops fled Kyeintali this morning after suffering heavy casualties,” he told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.
Following the fall of the town, junta troops have regrouped in two locations between Kyeintali and Gwa towns to try to stave off the AA’s attacks.
Staff and patients from a local cottage hospital between the two towns, and from the public hospital in Gwa town, have moved to Pathein, the capital of Ayeyarwady’s Region, as AA troops are making swift advances.
Since launching an offensive in November last year, the AA has taken control of most of northern Rakhine as well as neighboring Paletwa Township in Chin State.
