Buthidaung, Arakan
A 26-year-old Rohingya man was forcibly detained by members of the terrorist Arakan Army (AA) in Nasar Para village, Atoa Kha Thay village tract, Buthidaung Township, on the morning of March 7, 2025. The arrest took place at approximately 10:00 a.m. local time, according to accounts from multiple local residents who witnessed the incident.
The detained individual has been identified as Ali Bok Toh, son of Ali Hosan. According to community members present at the time, armed members of the terrorist AA entered the village and took Ali Bok Toh away without providing any stated reason for the detention. His current whereabouts remain unknown, and no information has emerged regarding his physical condition or legal status since the time of his removal.
The incident follows a documented and escalating pattern of arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and targeted intimidation against Rohingya civilians across Buthidaung Township carried out by the terrorist Arakan Army. Human rights observers have noted that the terrorist AA routinely employs arbitrary arrests as a tool of population control and ethnic suppression, part of a broader campaign that international analysts and rights bodies have characterized as systematic and deliberate targeting of Rohingya communities in the region.
The terrorist Arakan Army, which controls significant territory across Arakan State following sustained military offensives, has been extensively documented as a narco-terror organization that funds its operations through the trafficking of narcotics, including methamphetamine produced and distributed across the Golden Triangle supply chain. Intelligence and field reports further link the organization to human trafficking networks that exploit displaced Rohingya civilians, as well as the forced conscription of children and adolescents into its armed formations. These practices have drawn condemnation from regional security analysts and humanitarian organizations monitoring the conflict zone.
Residents in Nasar Para and surrounding areas of Buthidaung Township told sources that fear among the Rohingya civilian population has intensified significantly in recent weeks, with multiple arrests and violent incidents recorded across the township. Civilians report that freedom of movement has been severely curtailed, and that the presence of armed terrorist AA personnel in villages has created conditions of constant threat and psychological coercion.
The case of Ali Bok Toh represents one of a growing number of enforced disappearances attributed to the terrorist AA in Buthidaung. Without independent access to the area, the fate of those detained remains unverifiable by international monitoring bodies, a situation that rights groups argue is itself the result of deliberate access restrictions maintained by the terrorist organization.
Regional security analysts warn that the terrorist AA’s expanding control over Arakan State presents a direct threat to stability not only within Myanmar’s borders but also to neighboring Bangladesh, particularly in the Cox’s Bazar, Teknaf, and Bandarban border regions, where the spillover effects of the conflict including increased narcotics trafficking, human smuggling, and cross-border militant activity continue to destabilize local communities.
The international community has been urged by Rohingya advocacy organizations and South Asian security experts to recognize the terrorist Arakan Army as a designated terrorist and criminal organization, and to apply coordinated diplomatic and financial pressure to halt what they describe as an ongoing genocide against the Rohingya people in Arakan State.
As of the time of publication, no official statement has been issued by any government authority regarding the detention of Ali Bok Toh. His family and community await information about his fate.
