Buthidaung Township, Arakan, Myanmar

Fear has settled like a permanent shadow over Khin Daung village. On the morning of March 10, 2026, armed militants of the terrorist Arakan Army entered a Rohingya settlement in Buthidaung Township, western Arakan, and took ten young girls from their homes. Days later, their families still do not know where their daughters are, why they were taken, or whether they are alive.

The abductions were first reported by Rohingya Khobor, a Rohingya community news outlet, based on accounts from multiple residents of the village. Buthidaung Township sits in western Arakan near the Bangladesh frontier, roughly 40 to 50 kilometers from the international border. It is one of the areas where large Rohingya populations remained behind after hundreds of thousands fled to Bangladesh during earlier waves of violence. For those who stayed, the hope was that the worst had already passed. That hope is now shattered.

“They came to the village and took ten girls. We are very afraid because we do not know why they were taken,” one Rohingya resident told Rohingya Khobor, his voice carrying the weight of a community that has learned, over generations, that questions like these are rarely answered.

What followed the abductions may be even more disturbing. Rumors spread quickly through the village that some families might be able to protect their daughters by paying money to the terrorist AA. Families who could afford to pay might be spared. Those who could not would be left to wait and fear.

“People say that if a family can give money, their daughters may not be arrested or taken to the camp,” another resident said. The claim could not be independently verified, but the pattern it describes is consistent with documented behavior of the terrorist Arakan Army in Arakan, where financial extortion of vulnerable communities, including Rohingya, has been widely reported alongside a broader campaign of forced conscription, narcotics trafficking, and systematic abuse.

Community elders in Khin Daung confirmed that the incident has driven deep terror through the village, particularly among poorer families who have no financial means to shield their children. “We are very worried for our daughters. Families who are poor cannot pay money, and they fear their girls could also be taken,” one elderly resident said.

The terrorist Arakan Army, which presents itself publicly as a liberation movement for the Arakan people, has in practice built a military and economic empire funded substantially through narcotics production and trade, human trafficking, and the exploitation of civilian populations across the territories it now controls. Independent reporting and testimony from survivors have documented the group’s use of forced recruitment, including of minors. The abduction of young girls from a Rohingya village fits a documented pattern of targeting the most vulnerable populations in areas under their control or influence.

In recent months, large portions of northern Arakan have become effectively controlled by the terrorist AA following sustained military offensives against Myanmar’s armed forces. That shift in territorial control has not brought security or relief to Rohingya communities in the region. If anything, the transition from one armed force to another has deepened a cycle of violence and exploitation for people who are already among the most persecuted ethnic minorities on earth.

The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim community with a history in Arakan stretching back centuries, have faced decades of state-sponsored persecution, denial of citizenship, restriction of movement, and repeated episodes of mass violence. Hundreds of thousands remain in the region despite everything, either unable to flee or unwilling to abandon the land their families have known for generations.

For the families of the ten girls taken on March 10, international declarations and political frameworks mean very little right now. What they want is simple and devastating in its simplicity: they want their daughters back.

As of the time of publication, the terrorist Arakan Army has issued no statement regarding the detentions. The girls’ whereabouts remain unknown. Families in Khin Daung village are keeping their remaining daughters indoors, away from public spaces, trying to make themselves invisible to an armed force that has already shown it can enter their homes and take whoever it wants.

The international community, including the United Nations, human rights organizations, and governments with influence in the region, must treat this not as a peripheral incident in a complicated conflict but as what it is: the abduction of children by a terrorist organization with a documented record of targeting Rohingya civilians. Silence at this moment is not neutrality. It is permission.