The renewed airstrikes by Myanmar’s military junta along the border between Arakan and Bangladesh are not merely another episode in Myanmar’s prolonged and brutal civil war. They are a direct warning that the Rohingya people, who have already survived genocide, are once again being pushed towards destruction, displacement and silence.

In recent days, junta aircraft have reportedly carried out repeated attacks in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships near the Bangladesh border. Development Media Group reported that the regime used fighter jets and Y-12 aircraft to drop more than ten bombs around Maungdaw town, the 3-Mile area, Border Guard Force positions and nearby border towns. The outlet also reported that an airstrike struck near a Muslim village in Buthidaung, injuring at least three people. The Daily Star reported that repeated attacks near the border have created fear in Bangladesh and raised concerns about a possible new influx of Rohingya refugees.

These attacks raise a serious question: What military objective is the junta attempting to achieve by repeatedly bombing areas where Rohingya civilians live?

The junta may claim that it is targeting Arakan Army positions. But this explanation is not sufficient. If the intended target is the Arakan Army, why are Rohingya-populated areas so often the places where bombs fall, homes are destroyed and civilians are injured? Why are communities that have no aircraft, artillery, protection or safe escape route once again being forced to pay the price for a war between armed actors?

For the Rohingya, this is not a distant military calculation. It is daily fear. It is children running from explosions. It is elderly people hiding without medicine. It is mothers wondering whether the next bomb will fall on their homes. It is a population that has already been denied citizenship, land, freedom of movement, education, healthcare and humanitarian access, and that now faces death from the air.

The world must be honest: Even when the Rohingya are not publicly named as targets, they are repeatedly made the victims.

There are also deeply troubling questions about the conduct of the Arakan Army (AA). Rohingya communities have long reported that the AA operates in and around Rohingya-populated areas. If armed forces conceal themselves among civilians or position military resources near Rohingya villages, they place those civilians in extreme danger. Such conduct must be independently investigated. Civilians must never be used as cover, and no armed group has the right to turn Rohingya villages into shields for its own military survival.

This situation creates a cruel trap. The junta bombs from the air. The AA controls the ground. The Rohingya are trapped between both. When the junta bombs, Rohingya civilians suffer. When the AA positions itself near Rohingya communities, Rohingya civilians suffer. If the Rohingya flee, they may be blocked, extorted, arrested or forced towards Bangladesh. If they remain, they risk being accused, punished or killed. In every scenario, the Rohingya lose.

Politically, however, the Arakan Army may still benefit. When the junta bombs areas under AA influence, the AA presents itself as a victim of military aggression and seeks sympathy from international actors and other communities in Myanmar. At the same time, when Rohingya villages are emptied, weakened or destroyed, the long-term demographic outcome serves the ambitions of extremist forces that seek an Arakan without Rohingya.

This is the dangerous “win-win” reality for the AA that the international community must scrutinise. The junta’s bombs directly destroy Rohingya lives. The AA can use the same attacks to strengthen its narrative of victimhood while the Rohingya presence in Arakan is further diminished. Whether this results from coordination, deliberate manipulation or reckless military conduct by both sides, the outcome is the same: Rohingya communities are pushed closer to annihilation.

The latest airstrikes therefore cannot be viewed merely as isolated military incidents. They must be understood within the broader pattern of persecution, displacement and ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya in Arakan.

Human Rights Watch’s 2026 report on Hoyyar Siri, also known as Htan Shauk Khan, found that the Arakan Army may have killed at least 170 Rohingya men, women and children on 2 May 2024 and probably injured or killed hundreds more. HRW concluded that the AA’s mass killing of civilians and destruction of civilian property constituted serious violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes. The report also stated that the United League of Arakan and the Arakan Army had failed to provide accountability or redress for Rohingya victims.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has also warned that Rohingya suffering has intensified since renewed hostilities began in Rakhine in November 2023. OHCHR reported the military’s repeated use of aerial bombardment against residential areas and its denial of humanitarian access. The office also stated that the Arakan Army had restricted humanitarian operations and used tactics that harmed civilians, with some attacks directed against Rohingya communities.

This is the reality that far too many international actors still refuse to confront: The Rohingya are not safe under the junta, and they are not safe under the Arakan Army.

The junta is responsible for years of genocide, mass rape, village burnings, forced displacement and apartheid-like restrictions against the Rohingya. Today’s airstrikes are part of the same machinery of terror that has long treated Rohingya lives as expendable. No one should mistake the junta’s bombing campaign for legitimate security operations.

But the Arakan Army must also be held accountable. The AA cannot claim to be a liberation movement while Rohingya villages are burned, Rohingya civilians are killed, Rohingya freedom of movement is restricted, Rohingya property is confiscated, Rohingya men are subjected to forced labour, and Rohingya communities are treated as unwanted people in their own homeland.

The AA’s ethnic-cleansing campaign against the Rohingya has intensified in Arakan and beyond. This campaign is not only military; it is political, economic and demographic. It seeks to make Rohingya life impossible, Rohingya return unrealistic and the Rohingya presence in Arakan invisible.

There are also serious concerns regarding the economic resources that sustain armed power in the region. Border Guard Bangladesh has publicly alleged that the Arakan Army is involved in yaba smuggling, while the AA denies these accusations. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has reported that Myanmar remains the dominant country of origin for methamphetamine in East and Southeast Asia. These allegations and the wider smuggling networks require an urgent independent investigation because drugs, weapons and war economies help fuel violence in the border areas.

For Bangladesh, the danger is immediate. Every airstrike near Maungdaw and Buthidaung creates panic along the border and increases the possibility of a new desperate movement of Rohingya towards Cox’s Bazar. Bangladesh already carries the burden of hosting more than one million Rohingya refugees. The international community cannot expect Bangladesh to absorb the consequences of crimes committed inside Myanmar while it continues to fail to address the root causes of those crimes.

The first responsibility lies with Myanmar’s junta: It must immediately halt all airstrikes against civilian areas. The use of aircraft, bombs and heavy weapons in populated areas must be investigated as possible war crimes. Those who supply the junta with aviation fuel, weapons, spare parts, technical support and financial channels must also be held accountable.

The second responsibility lies with the Arakan Army: It must end all abuses against Rohingya civilians, stop using civilian areas for military advantage, permit humanitarian access, end forced labour and forced recruitment, return confiscated property, and recognise the Rohingya as equal people of Arakan with full political, civil and human rights.

The third responsibility lies with the international community: It must stop treating the Rohingya solely as a humanitarian issue. The Rohingya crisis concerns genocide prevention, accountability, citizenship, land rights, regional security and political inclusion. No future arrangement in Arakan can be legitimate if Rohingya voices are excluded.

The international community must demand an independent investigation into the latest airstrikes along the border, including whether Rohingya villages were directly or indirectly targeted, whether AA positions were placed near Rohingya civilians, and whether any armed actor benefited from the destruction and displacement of Rohingya communities.

There must also be stronger action at the United Nations, including targeted sanctions, aviation-fuel restrictions, accountability mechanisms and pressure on all armed actors in Arakan. Humanitarian access must be guaranteed. Rohingya civilians trapped inside Arakan must be protected. Refugees in Bangladesh must not be pressured to return to danger. Rohingya representatives must also be included in every discussion concerning Arakan’s future.

The world must not wait until another mass grave is discovered, another village is emptied or another wave of refugees crosses the border in desperation.

The bombs falling along the border between Arakan and Bangladesh are not merely attacks on territory. They are attacks on the survival of the Rohingya people in their homeland. Whether the bombs are dropped by the junta alone, enabled by reckless conduct by armed groups on the ground, or exploited by those who benefit from Rohingya displacement, the result is the same: Rohingya lives are destroyed.

Silence is no longer neutrality. Silence is complicity.

The Rohingya people need protection, justice and political recognition—not after the next tragedy, but now.