Bangladesh, Arakan Army: Establish Humanitarian Corridor For War-Affected Civilians In Myanmar

(COX’S BAZAR, March 12, 2025)–The Government of Bangladesh and the Arakan Army (AA) should immediately facilitate humanitarian aid and cross-border trade to reach war-affected civilians in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Fortify Rights said today. Evidence collected and analyzed by Fortify Rights shows that the Myanmar junta has systematically denied life-saving humanitarian aid to civilians in need, including ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya communities, causing avoidable civilian fatalities.

The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is scheduled to visit Bangladesh from March 13 to 16, where he is expected to visit Rohingya refugee camps and discuss the humanitarian needs on both sides of the border.

According to the U.N., more than 519,000 people are displaced in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and more than two million are in urgent need of food, medicine, and essential supplies. Recent cuts in U.S. foreign aid by the Trump administration have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis, furthering the Myanmar military junta’s interests.

“Rights-respecting countries should explore all possibilities to facilitate the delivery of life-saving aid to communities in need in Myanmar.” said Ejaz Min Khant, Human Rights Associate at Fortify Rights. “A humanitarian corridor between Bangladesh and Myanmar would enable vital aid and trade for all communities. Failure to act will cost lives.”

Fortify Rights documented how the Myanmar military junta has imposed severe restrictions on aid deliveries, directly resulting in civilian deaths. The junta has also blocked trade routes, exacerbating food and medicine shortages in Rakhine State. The Trump administration reportedly slashed Myanmar's projected aid in 2025 by US$259 million, including US$170 million earmarked for humanitarian relief, which could have devastating consequences on civilians trapped in conflict zones in the country.

Between August 2024 and February 2025, Fortify Rights interviewed 15 residents of Rakhine State, Myanmar and newly arrived refugees from Myanmar, including five women, in Bangladesh—including ethnic Rohingya, Rakhine, Kaman, Chakma, and Barua individuals—as well as U.N. officials and aid workers.

Documents obtained and reviewed by Fortify Rights confirm junta-imposed travel authorization bans for humanitarian workers to deliver aid in Rakhine State.

Civilian Deaths Due to Junta-Imposed Aid Blockade

While the junta only fully controls three of the 17 townships in Rakhine State, one is Sittwe Township, which includes the capital—Sittwe—a key port city. This enables the junta to effectively block deliveries of aid to Rakhine State from elsewhere in Myanmar.

Junta-imposed restrictions on aid have led to preventable deaths and may amount to war crimes, Fortify Rights said.

Aung Tun, a 35-year-old Rohingya father living in an internment camp for displaced Rohingya in Pauktaw Township, told Fortify Rights how his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter died in July 2024 of acute diarrhea due to a lack of medical supplies and access to heathcare. He told Fortify Rights:

I tried to call [medical organization name redacted for security], but they couldn’t send any medicine because the junta restricted it months ago. My daughter was small. She didn’t make it. She died within three hours [after the onset of the diarrhea]. My wife and I were devastated.

Aung Tun recounted:

It happened suddenly. First, some children in my neighborhood were affected. Their stool went completely watery. It was very sad that there were no medicines here. Some died soon after they first suffered the diarrhea. Then, four adult men died in two days. They died due to the diarrhea, and that they couldn’t get treatment in time.

On available aid, Aung Tun said:

There were only limited oral rehydration salt sachets, and it was expensive for many people to afford it. Some took oral rehydration sachets. But still, their health situation was too serious; it didn’t help them. They didn’t survive. Some others didn’t even get time to take them. Their health deteriorated so quickly, and they died.

Aung Tun estimated that 12 people died in this single outbreak due to the junta’s blockade on medicine.

The World Health Organization recorded more than 2,600 cases of “acute watery diarrhea,” known as AWDs, in Rakhine State between June 16 and October 26, 2024.

Maung Aye Tun, 37, an ethnic Kaman man living in Thae Chaung internment camp in Sittwe Township, also reported being unable to receive medical care as a result of the junta restrictions on humanitarian workers. Maung Aye Tun told Fortify Rights:

Whenever I feel sick, or my sons are, I go to the NGO [non-governmental organizations] clinics. … Last month, I suffered severe abdominal pain for four days. But I couldn’t see a doctor as there were no doctors in the camp. … It has been around four months now since [the humanitarian organizations providing medical treatment] stopped coming to our camps and treating the patients due to the junta’s restrictions on their travel.

In February 2025, a U.N. official in Bangladesh supporting refugees from Myanmar who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Fortify Rights:

Over the last few months, we’ve been hearing more frequently from new arrivals that they’re leaving Rakhine [State] not just because of the violence and fighting, but also because of increasingly limited access to food and healthcare. Unfortunately, though, because Bangladesh still won’t allow us to register new arrivals, accessing essentials like food, medical care, and shelter here [in Coxs Bazar] is also very challenging for them, and as the impacts of the U.S. funding freeze start to take hold, we fear the situation will only continue to deteriorate.

Another U.N. official working in Rakhine State, speaking to Fortify Rights on the condition of anonymity, said:

Rakhine [State] faces an impending food crisis with domestic production anticipated to meet only 20 percent of food needs by early 2025. Restricted access to seeds and fertilizers, harsh weather, displacement, and ongoing conflict have decimated local rice production, putting over two million people at risk of starvation.

The official also noted:

Since the clashes erupted between the AA and the junta military in November 2023, the junta military imposed strict restrictions in terms of accessibility as well as movement. The junta military administration blocked the main supply chains from central Rakhine to northern Rakhine and later from central Myanmar into northern Rakhine State.

Humanitarians also stated that junta authorities are denying or not responding to requests for Travel Authorizations (TAs), which enable them to deliver life-saving humanitarian aid to hard-to-reach and vulnerable populations. An aid worker with an international humanitarian organization in Maungdaw Township told Fortify Rights that his organization has not received travel authorizations for their work in Maungdaw since November 2023:

So we have had to halt field activities. We applied for TAs several times to the [junta] state government, but each time, they rejected it. They did not provide a formal response, but that is their standard practice. If we do not receive a letter, it means our request has been denied. Later, we tried to approach the township-based military commander’s office, but he did not respond either.

A senior U.N. official confirmed this practice, saying:

In April 2024, we submitted a letter to the township junta Military Tactical Commander in Buthidaung Township requesting permission to provide life-saving humanitarian aid to civilians displaced. However, they never responded to the request, which meant it was rejected. There was no consideration of human suffering [of civilians] who lack the most basic survival needs.

Fortify Rights has a copy of the letter sent by the U.N. agency to the junta on file. Without the travel authorization, aid convoys cannot pass through the numerous military junta checkpoints in the region to reach affected communities.

Fortify Rights also obtained and analyzed several official documents from the junta detailing the partial or complete denial of TAs to U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations operating in Rakhine State.

Economic Blockade: Rising Prices, Deepening Hunger

Junta-imposed restrictions on trade in and out of the state have further exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State. According to Rakhine State residents, rice prices have doubled since November 2024, reportedly due to the junta’s trade blockade.

A November 2024 market analysis report on Rakhine State by the Myanmar Information Management Unit stated that the "total basket [of basic household commodities] price was up 185% year-on-year, and vegetables and hygiene NFIs [non-food items] were up roughly 300%.”

A November 2024 U.N. Development Programme report further found that up to two million people in Rakhine State are at risk of starvation due to the conditions in the state. The report states:

Without urgent action, 95% of the population will regress into survival mode, left to fend for themselves amid a drastic reduction in domestic production, skyrocketing prices, widespread unemployment, and heightened insecurity. With trade routes closed and severe restrictions on aid, Rakhine risks becoming a fully isolated zone of deep human suffering.

The fighting throughout Myanmar has also led to a sharp drop in farming, further affecting food security, including in Rakhine State. For example, a Buddhist Chakma refugee in Bangladesh told Fortify Rights:

Working in the field during the war was challenging. We endured extremely difficult days there [in Rakhine State]. It was almost impossible to cultivate our crops due to intense fighting between the AA and the military.

Junta-imposed restrictions on movement around Sittwe have disrupted the delivery of essential services that would otherwise be distributed statewide, including healthcare and goods. As a result, displaced communities, including those in Sittwe’s Thae Chaung internment camp, and residents are struggling with limited medical care or supplies.

A Rohingya pharmacist and drugstore owner who supports medicine shipments to Rakhine State from Yangon—the commercial capital of Myanmar—told Fortify Rights:

A few months ago, I tried to send two large medicine boxes to Rakhine [State] via Yangon Airport cargo. However, the airport authority rejected the package, saying it is prohibited to send medicine to Rakhine due to an order from the [junta] government. … I stopped trading with Rakhine State several months ago, and no longer send medicines. … [N]o one can send them [medicine]. Due to the [junta] government's restrictions, sending medicines to Rakhine State is very hard. There are many obstacles and restrictions. The military has not allowed it since the [renewed] fighting there began [in November 2023]. I know there is a huge need for medicine in Rakhine State, but it’s so risky and impossible for me to send it.

The AA also bears responsibility for the humanitarian predicament in Rakhine State, said Fortify Rights, citing evidence of arson attacks against Rohingya neighborhoods and a massacre of civilians in August 2024.

The Rohingya pharmacist quoted above added: “I already lost my home, property, and a large medicine store in Buthidaung when the AA burned it down in May 2024. I spent over 15 million Myanmar Kyat [US$4,300] to evacuate my family from there. I don’t have the capacity for more losses.”

A Rohingya humanitarian worker added:

When the Arakan Army attacked Maungdaw, they blocked transport for goods from the 4-mile area. The Arakan Army blocked all the access to the vegetables and fruit. Bangladeshi authorities also block border trade. … People suffered heavily from lack of medical treatment and the food shortages there.

Bangladesh, Arakan Army Must Act: Open a Humanitarian Corridor

With Myanmar’s crisis deepening, Bangladesh and the AA must take more urgent steps to cooperate and facilitate humanitarian access and trade, said Fortify Rights.

In February 2025, Dr. Khalilur Rahman, the High Representative of the Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh on the Rohingya Problem and Priority Issues, said at a public seminar: “The day the AA raised its flag on our border, I instantly realized it's a new world — you got to deal with them.”

More recently, in an interview with Sky News that aired on March 4, 2025, Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, said his transitional government was involved in ongoing negotiations with the AA on the creation of a “safe zone” for Rohingya refugees to return to Rakhine State.

“Safe zones have historically not been safe, and that would very likely be the case in Rakhine State now for Rohingya people,” said Ejaz Min Khant. “The conditions for Rohingya to safely return to their homeland are not in place, but the government of Bangladesh and the Arakan Army can ensure humanitarian aid reaches all ethnic communities in need.”

Humanitarian corridors are designated and secure routes that allow for the safe passage of humanitarian relief.

Bangladesh should also lift restrictions on border trade with Myanmar to help ease access to basic commodities for civilians in Rakhine State.

International humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, is applicable to the situation in Myanmar and obliges parties to the conflict in Rakhine State to protect civilians and humanitarian aid workers. Denying humanitarian aid to war-affected civilians is a war crime, and those responsible for it can be prosecuted for war crimes. Moreover, international humanitarian law protects the right to freedom of movement for humanitarian aid workers. Authorities may only restrict the right to freedom of movement for aid workers in cases of “imperative military necessity” in a limited manner and only temporarily.

“The crisis in Myanmar demands urgent global attention and action,” said Ejaz Min Khant. “A humanitarian corridor between Myanmar and Bangladesh would be a lifeline for civilians impacted by the conflict.”

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