Fighting continued near Thandwe Airport in southern Rakhine State on Friday as the Arakan Army continued its offensive to seize the town next to the most valuable beach in Myanmar, Ngapali, local residents said.
Clashes that started on Sunday about 1.6 kilometers north of the airport in Thandwe Township steadily moving closer to it as the week progressed.
By Friday junta troops had taken positions inside the airport, Rakhine media reported. Fighting also occurred near the headquarters of the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion 566, which is near the airport, according to residents and Rakhine media reports.
On Thursday, five regime troops, including an army officer, were killed in the fighting and their bodies were sent to the public hospital in Thandwe Town, 6.4km east of Ngapali Beach town, a Thandwe resident close to the hospital told The Irrawaddy on Friday.
“Last night, we heard random shelling of regime bases in the beach town. This morning, we could hear artillery strikes and continuous gunfire from regime bases [around the airport],” the source added.
Rakhine media also reported that clashes between Arakan Army and the junta troops continued at a mountainous site 4.8km north of the beach town.
Due to the clashes, residents either fled the town or stayed inside their homes. “We left the town two days ago when we heard fighting nearby,” a Ngapali resident sheltering in Kyeintali Town in southern Rakhine’s Gwa Township, told The Irrawaddy.
Early last year, junta boss Min Aung Hlaing called on Ngapali’s hotel operators to do more to promote the 7-km long white-sand beach to foreign tourists. Weeks later, the Russia-Myanmar Friendship Association signed a deal with junta cronies to develop more resorts on the palm-fringed beach and promote it as a luxury destination.
The beach is home to luxury resorts owned by junta crony U Aung Myo Min Din, a hotelier with close ties to Min Aung Hlaing’s family.
Despite being touted as one of the most beautiful beaches in Asia, Ngapali has not seen visitors since the Arakan Army launched a large-scale offensive against junta positions in northern Rakhine State on Nov. 13 last year. Its stated goal is to drive the regime out of Myanmar’s westernmost state.
Since the launch of the offensive, the Arakan Army has steamrolled through Rakhine State, seizing 10 of its 17 townships. It now controls most of northern Rakhine State as well as a township across the border in Chin State.
The ethnic army also seized two headquarters of junta-controlled Border Guard Police on Thursday and Friday as it fights for full control of Maungdaw Township near the state’s border with Bangladesh, Rakhine media reported.
