The 2012 Communal Violence in Rakhine State Begins

On This Day in Arakan History ၊ May 28, 2012

May 28, 2012, marks the day when long-simmering communal tensions in Rakhine State erupted into open violence, triggered by the rape and murder of a 27-year-old ethnic Rakhine woman named Ma Thida Htwe by three Muslim youths in Yanbye Township.

Photographs of the victim were circulated on Facebook, and when the alleged perpetrators—identified as Muslims—were named and pictured online, the information spread rapidly through social media, with outlets highlighting religious identities and heightening ethnic tensions.

Following the incident, tensions escalated dramatically. On June 3, a bus carrying 10 Muslim passengers was stopped by a crowd of some 300 people in Taungup Township; the passengers were beaten to death in apparent revenge, with Human Rights Watch (2012) confirming that local police and soldiers stood by and watched without intervening.

On June 8, thousands of Muslim residents rioted in Maungdaw after Friday prayers, destroying Rakhine property and killing unknown numbers of Rakhine residents. Sectarian violence then swept through Sittwe.

Official government figures recorded 77 dead, 109 injured, and 4,822 houses, 17 mosques, 15 monasteries, and 3 schools burned. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2012) reported over 70,000 people displaced. President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency on June 10, deploying the military and implementing martial law—the first such action of his reformist presidency, revealing how communal violence could threaten Myanmar's democratic transition.

The violence that began on May 28, 2012, created lasting consequences for the Rakhine state. This period, for local Rakhine people, deepened existential fears—generations-old concerns about being demographically overwhelmed in their ancestral land, fueled by decades of unchecked immigration and central governments' failure to protect Myanmar's western border.

Rakhine campaigns for separation emerged from genuine belief that their culture and survival were under threat—a perception international criticism only reinforced. The crisis transformed Rakhine political consciousness: many concluded peaceful advocacy through parties like the RNDP was insufficient, pushing a new generation toward supporting the stronger path. The violence erased generations of intercommunal coexistence where Rakhine and Muslims had once lived and traded together.

A house engulfed in flames in Sittwe during the communal violence (source@theguardian)

Today, Rakhine communities feel deeply resentful that international attention focuses almost exclusively on Muslim suffering while their own grievances—civilians being attacked and killed, marginalization, disenfranchisement, and military violence—remain overlooked . Destroyed Rakhine villages and displaced Rakhine families receive far less attention than Muslim (Rohingya) camps. May 28, 2012, thus stands as the date when two communities' tragedies became permanently entangled in mutual fear and loss.