A “river of blood” was how one survivor described the scene in western Myanmar. “I saw shooting. I saw mass killing.” Another told the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) how 20 relatives, including three children, had been killed in the 2024 attack on Htan Shauk Khan village.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said earlier this month that the Arakan Army (AA) “may have killed at least 170 Rohingya men, women, and children” in Hoyyar Siri (known as Htan Shauk Khan in Burmese) in Buthidaung Township. It described the May 2, 2024, attack as a “massacre”.

Buthidaung is one of the two townships in Rakhine State that is home to the majority of the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority in the predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.

At least 40 villages in Buthindaung were burned down in April and May 2024 amid clashes between the AA, an ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar’s military junta for control of Rakhine, and junta forces battling to retain their hold of the township.

Both sides committed abuses against civilians during the clashes, according to HRW. The military junta’s forced conscription of Rohingya to fight on its behalf has also intensified violence against them. 

The military and Rohingya armed groups began arson attacks in Buthidaung township in April 2024. By mid-May the AA had captured all junta bases, according to the think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The destruction of Buthidaung has previously been documented by Bellingcat. 

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The AA has denied accusations that it massacred civilians in Buthidaung, claiming that those killed were junta soldiers and Rohingya militants.

Bellingcat emailed the United League of Arakan, AA’s political wing, about the alleged attack on civilians but did not receive a response at the time of publication. Myanmar’s Ministry of Defence also did not respond to our questions. 

Evidence of civilian harm in Myanmar is slow to emerge and difficult to obtain due to the military’s strict control of the region and the tight grip of armed groups such as the AA in areas they control. 

“The mass killing could only be confirmed more than a year later,” the recent HRW report said, “when survivors eventually crossed into Bangladesh and found their way to the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.” 

Aerial imagery shows that Htan Shauk Khan was almost entirely destroyed in May 2024.

Erasing Homes

A new investigation by Bellingcat has identified 115 villages in Rakhine State, similar to Htan Shauk Khan, as partially or completely destroyed since the February 2021 military coup that overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government.

The data points to a pattern of violence that leaves civilian areas uninhabitable and in some cases, erases them completely.

MapLibre | Protomaps | Planet Labs © OpenStreetMap contributors

Several buildings were set on fire when the junta allegedly dropped a bomb on the Muslim village of Zu La on Nov. 3, 2024. The fire was captured nearby on NASA FIRMS.

Satellite imagery indicates that it was attacked again on Dec. 9, 2024. Visible smoke can be seen rising from the village.

Zu La is located in Maungdaw Township. Along with neighbouring Buthidaung, Maungdaw is home to the majority of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya.

Zu La, and the neighbouring village of Gone Nar, previously faced violence during the 2017 Rohingya genocide.

Satellite imagery from that year shows them completely burned to the ground.

They show signs of reconstruction after 2017.

But repeated attacks in 2024 destroyed the villages again.

Neither of the villages appears on the latest maps from 2024. These are produced by the United Nations mapping unit, based on Myanmar government maps.

Steve Ross, Senior Fellow at the US nonprofit Stimson Center who is leading the ‘Crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State’ project, told Bellingcat this is part of the military’s broader campaign to deny the existence of the Rohingya and erase identity in Rakhine.

Bellingcat contacted the Myanmar government but had received no response by the time of publication.

Villages in Mungdaw are inured to cycles of violence. Ywar Haung, a village south of Zu La, has stood barren since 2017.

So has Kan Kya, where the military built the Border Guard Police Battalion No. 5 (BGP5).

All four villages are among the growing number of Rakhine’s lost settlements.

Six of the 10 villages we found partially or totally destroyed in Maungdaw in 2024 aren’t marked on the UN’s township map.

Removing more villages from the map remains a possibility, Ross said. However, following this April’s elections, which critics dismissed as a sham, the military is eager to restore international credibility and avoid actions that might be seen as provocative, the expert told Bellingcat.

The AA announced the capture of Maungdaw when it seized BGP5 on Dec. 8, 2024.

And with that the armed group gained full control of Myanmar’s entire border with Bangladesh.

Shortly afterwards, the AA took control of the strategically important Ann Township in central Rakhine.

The armed group announced it had captured the headquarters of the Western Regional Military Command on Dec. 18, 2024.

It shared a video of the headquarters and nearby military installations burning.

Local residents in and around the township were trapped, displaced or forced to flee their homes due to the months-long fight for Ann.

According to reports, the military entered Pyaung Chaung village and burned it down on Oct. 31, 2024.

Satellite imagery from Nov. 1, 2024, shows large-scale damage in the village. There were reports that the military warned residents to evacuate the village a week before the attack.

Ross believes that the military’s intention has been to try to make Rakhine as ungovernable as possible if the AA gains full control of the state.

Nearby villages of Yat Thar Ywar Thit

and Pyaung Thay show similar evidence of destruction.

Sittwe city, the capital of Rakhine State, has become a focal area of fighting since late 2025. The city is in Sittwe township, one of the three townships still under junta control.

Su Mon Thant, Asia-Pacific analyst at Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), said capturing Sittwe would be highly symbolic for the AA as no non-state actor has yet taken control of a state capital in the country.

The AA already controls areas along an India-backed transport corridor in Myanmar that includes a port in Sittwe.

Sittwe is surrounded by water on three sides. Capturing it would be challenging, with the military maintaining naval superiority and building defences in and around the city to deter a potential AA offensive, Ross said.

On Dec. 27, 2024, the AA attacked the Kyauk Tan checkpoint near Sittwe on the highway linking the capital to Yangon, the largest city to the south of Rakhine.

There are many villages near the checkpoint.

Like Taw Kan

where, according to local reports, junta forces carried out an arson attack that destroyed 80 houses on Jan. 15, 2024.

Bellingcat found at least 13 villages near the checkpoint that had been destroyed, with only a few remaining structures. All but one of them were attacked in 2024-2025.

Less than 4km from the checkpoint is Yar Tan

which appears intact in a March 2024 Google Earth image

but several buildings look destroyed in high-resolution satellite image on Google Earth from March 2025.

Trenches and military outposts began appearing near the village around Nov-Dec 2024.

They grew as the months passed. However, due to a lack of updated high-resolution satellite images, we cannot tell whether these are currently in use or to what extent.

There are also villages that appear to have been replaced with defensive structures. For example, Kan Pyin Ywar Haung, for which the latest available high-resolution satellite image shows trenches on both sides.

Although such structures are clearly visible in high-resolution satellite imagery, lower-quality images can also help indicate whether a village was replaced with fortifications.

Kan Pyin Ywar Thit, located just south of Kan Pyin Ywar Haung, appears to have been completely destroyed; however, the same criss-crossing lines are not visible across the village.

Similar fortifications appear in other villages.

Defence infrastructure has replaced villages on the outskirts of Sittwe, making it more difficult for AA to advance towards the city, said Ross.

Bellingcat also found at least 10 villages partially or totally destroyed in Kyaukpyu Township since fighting intensified in February 2025.

Kyaukpyu, which has abundant oil, natural gas and marine resources, is also home to a junta naval base

As well as Chinese infrastructure projects that the AA fully or partially controls.

Nearly all the villages we found to be destroyed or damaged are within a 10km radius of the naval base.

In early March this year, clashes took place between the AA and the military near Say Maw village, located less than 5km from the base.

NASA FIRMS detected fire in the village and the surrounding areas on March 23, 2026.

The latest high resolution satellite image on Planet from April 2026 shows flattened buildings in the village.

A month earlier Saing Chon Dwein village, also less than 5km from the base, was reportedly burned down by the military.

The fire was caught on a Feb. 9, 2026 lower resolution satellite image

with burnt areas distinguishable the next day.

Like Sittwe, Kyaukpyu is surrounded by water, making it difficult for the Arakan Army, which lacks naval capabilities, to seize control. “AA has some advanced drones reportedly, but these areas also have jamming technology,” said Thant.

Methodology

The data was compiled using news reports, including social media channels, ACLED, satellite imagery and NASA FIRMS. The names of the villages were corroborated using the UN’s Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU), news reports and Planet Labs. 

We only included areas where the destruction was clearly visible in high-resolution satellite imagery or significant enough to be detected in mid-resolution images. Our data is not exhaustive and the true number of affected villages is likely to be higher.

While it is difficult to ascertain whether the villages we found damaged or destroyed showed signs of reconstruction, at least five of them appear to show some buildings rebuilt in latest available satellite imagery.

Military Control Is Slipping

Last month, in the first election since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, the pro-military parliament chose junta chief Min Aung Hlaing to be the next president.  

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According to research group Data for Myanmar, at least 65 townships were excluded from voting, including the 14 in the AA’s control. In Rakhine’s 17 townships, voting was held in only three still under junta control – Kyaukpyu, Sittwe and Manaung.

The AA resumed attacks against the junta in Rakhine in November 2023, ending a year-long ceasefire.

Data published by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and analysed by Bellingcat reveals a sharp increase in the military’s air and drone strikes in Rakhine. After the AA resumed its offensive, strikes rose from 30 in 2023 to 461 in 2024. By the end of 2024, the AA had captured all but three townships in the state.

Bellingcat found that strikes were then concentrated in the townships where the junta is fighting to maintain control. They decreased in 13 townships captured by the AA and remained unchanged in one during 2025. By contrast, attacks increased in Kyaukpyu and Sittwe, yet to be captured by the AA. Data for Manaung is unavailable.

ACLED’s data comes from multiple sources, including news reports and social media. While the data is not exhaustive, a broad trend can be identified. You can read further details and caveats about the data here.

Su Mon Thant, Asia-Pacific analyst at ACLED,explained that the military conducts clearance operations to prevent the AA from using villages as buffers or shelters – a tactic employed across the country. “At the same time, it’s a warning sign for other villages,” she said, adding that when one village is set ablaze, it sends a signal to other villages not to “accept, shelter or harbor” armed groups. Thant also noted that people are displaced when their village is destroyed, eroding support for armed groups as locals suffer the consequences of the fighting. 

The AA has vowed to take control of all of Rakhine by 2027 and success may bring a geopolitical shift in the region. The armed group’s control over Kyaukpyu and Sittwe will give it significant leverage, with both India and China having infrastructure projects in the townships, Steve Ross of the Stimson Center told Bellingcat.

But neither side can control the state without further alleviation of civilian suffering, Ross said. According to UNHRC data, there are almost half a million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Rakhine as of March 30, 2026.

In Sittwe township alone, about 120,000 Rohingya have been displaced by communal conflict since 2012. 

“People displaced from other parts of Rakhine State during the war are in Sittwe, hundreds of thousands of civilians,” said Thant, adding that neither side can control the capital without significant loss of life.

There are also 1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The futures of both the refugees and IDPs remain uncertain. 

“Nobody can go home yet at this stage,” said Thant.

---

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.

The post The ‘Lost’ Villages of Myanmar’s Rakhine appeared first on bellingcat.

This investigation is a collaboration between Bellingcat and Jeune Afrique. You can read Jeune Afrique’s article in French here.

Unexploded Russian-made cluster munition bomblets, as well as damage consistent with bomblet impacts, have been found in a village in northern Mali – despite the West African country being a state party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) which prohibits their use. 

The deployment of cluster munitions in northern Mali was first reported by Radio France International last week, citing local sources yet without showing images of the munitions or strikes in the reporting. However, social media footage posted on May 17, and since analysed by Bellingcat and our publishing partner, Jeune Afrique, shows unexploded Russian manufactured ShOAB-0.5 submunitions (bomblets).

Bellingcat geolocated a video showing the unexploded ShOAB-0.5 bomblets in the village of Tadjmart (18.977305, 0.86072), located approximately 55-kilometers (34-miles) south of the larger town of Aguelhok in northern Mali. This matches the location of airstrikes announced by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) on May 17. FAMa claimed it had identified armed groups in the area.

Russia’s paramilitary Africa Corps group, which is controlled by the Russian government and which replaced the Wagner mercenary group in the country, has been supporting Malian military operations.

Mali’s civil war has been ongoing since 2012. But the conflict has spiked in recent weeks as Tuareg separatists from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and militants from the al-Qaeda affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) seized control of parts of the country in coordinated attacks against Malian and Africa Corps forces.

Les mercenaires continuent de larguer des bombes sur des maisons et certains diront pourquoi se révolter contre ces genres des pratiques inhumaines ne respectant aucun Droit. https://t.co/5jynKwUgeW pic.twitter.com/nB3ym4yooc

— Mohamed Lilly (@MedLilly1) May 17, 2026

The footage geolocated by Bellingcat shows the unexploded submunitions near buildings, alongside multiple small craters, consistent with submunition explosions.

The buildings and landmarks visible in the footage allowed us to geolocate where it was taken.

Additional footage geolocated by Bellingcat to nearby coordinates 18.97954, 0.85989 shows destroyed and burning buildings several hundred meters away, although this damage is not consistent with cluster munition use. The damage appears more significant than that which would be caused by submunition impacts.

Cluster munitions are explosive weapons which open mid-air to release large numbers of submunitions. They are prohibited from being used by signatories of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) because they are indiscriminate, saturate a wide area and can leave behind highly volatile unexploded bomblets which can kill civilians long after deployment. 

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While Mali is a signatory to the CCM, Russia is not a state party to the agreement. 

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, told Bellingcat that as a party to the CCM, Mali is “subject to its prohibitions and requirements. These include not only prohibitions on the use of cluster munitions, but also obligations to clear and destroy such munitions on its territory.”

ShOAB-0.5 submunitions are carried by the Russian RBK-500 cluster munition dispenser. A single RBK-500 dispenser can deploy about 565 ShOAB-0.5 submunitions. There is as yet no footage posted online showing a spent dispenser linked to this incident.Footage did circulate online on May 16 showing the remnants of an RBK-500. It was claimed to have been used in a separate cluster munition strike in the Timbuktu region of Mali. However, this footage was not geolocatable, given it only shows a close up of the dispenser at night, nor was it possible to tell when the footage was taken.

A second video appears to show the same dispenser, but shows the side with visible Russian markings denoting the model: “РБК-500; ШОАБ-0.5; ТГ-30”. This identifies the dispenser, RBK-500, the submunition inside, ShOAB-0.5, and the explosive filler, TG-30.

RBK-500 dispensers are deployed by Russian-made aircraft including several MiG and Su models. According to the 2024 IISS Military Balance report, Mali does not have any known operational Russian fixed-wing attack aircraft. Two Russian Su-25 aircraft delivered to Mali – one in 2022 and another in 2023 – are reported to have crashed and been out of service since late 2023.

An Su-24M model has since appeared in satellite imagery captured at Modibo Keita International Airport in Bamako. The imagery was first published by France 24 in April 2025, although it was unclear if this aircraft was, or has been, operated by Africa Corps or Malian forces.

Bellingcat contacted the Malian military and Russian Ministry of Defence requesting comment, and asking which force was responsible for deploying cluster munitions. We did not receive a substantive response by publication time beyond the initial statement made by the FAMa which detailed it was responsible for the May 17 strike.

A video posted on May 17, by an account linked to Azawad rebels in Northern Mali, shows a person handling components of a ShOAB-0.5 submunition, seemingly unaware of the danger. However, as the video shows only a close up of the submunition, it has not been possible to geolocate the video or confirm when it was taken.

Les Azawadiens ne fabriquent pas les armes au contraire ils les démontent ! pic.twitter.com/0tqOb6ut9G

— Oumayya AG Ambeiry (@AgOumayya) May 17, 2026

The FLA condemned the use of cluster munitions in a statement published on May 18. 

Bellingcat has previously reported on the use of cluster munitions in Syria and Ukraine and the danger they pose to civilians.

Youri van der Weide contributed to this report.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.

The post Banned Russian Submunitions Found After Mali’s Military Announces Airstrikes appeared first on bellingcat.

The fragile ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hezbollah last month is holding. 

But satellite imagery shows that at least 46 of 54 towns and villages within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “Yellow Line” in southern Lebanon have been heavily damaged or, in some cases, entirely flattened. 

Much of the destruction and demolition has taken place in recent weeks.

Bellingcat’s satellite imagery analysis examined towns and villages identified on OpenStreetMap, a community-driven map database. Medium resolution PlanetScope satellite imagery covering each of the locations was provided by Planet Labs, a US company that recently restricted some of its imagery in the Middle East.

Bellingcat is sharing the annotated PlanetScope imagery for the dates of March 2 and May 8, 2026, showing the scale of damage that has occurred during roughly the first two months of the US-Israeli war against Iran.

The towns and villages detailed in the map are colour coded. Red shows locations  that have suffered varying degrees of damage or destruction, while yellow shows locations that were damaged prior to the US-Israeli war with Iran. White shows locations that have not been significantly damaged at time of publication.

Scroll and zoom to see damage throughout southern Lebanon in each of the date tabs. The first image is from March 2, 2026, shortly after the US and Israel attacked Iran. The second image is from May 8, 2026, more than two months after the start of the war and amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. PlanetScope imagery via Planet Labs PBC.

Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, is reported to have stated that “all homes in Lebanese villages near the border will be destroyed — in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza”. The aim, Katz said, is to “remove, once and for all, the threats near the border”. Israel has adopted similar methods of flattening buildings and homes close to Israel’s border in Gaza.

The large-scale destruction in southern Lebanon has been reported by multiple outlets including the BBC, CNN, SkyNews and The New York Times. These reports have shared images from several towns and villages, but Bellingcat is publishing satellite imagery for the entirety of southern Lebanon. The changes between the two dates show the scale and pace of destruction.

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Within the Yellow Line  — the area occupied by the IDF since a ceasefire was agreed between Hezbollah and Israel on April 16 —  some towns were reported already destroyed or heavily damaged during the 2024 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Some — like the coastal border town of Naqoura or the southeastern border town of Kfar Kila — have now been largely demolished. This is visible in both the medium-resolution PlanetScope imagery, and in high-resolution imagery obtained from Airbus by the BBC.   

Everything south of Lebanon’s Litani and Zahrani Rivers has been under evacuation orders issued by the IDF since early March, with regular updates warning residents to leave ahead of airstrikes. 

Much of the destruction within the “Yellow Line” appears to be from either controlled demolitions using explosives or construction vehicles. The IDF has shared numerous videos showing large-scale demolitions conducted in the towns and villages in southern Lebanon, while videos shared elsewhere on social media show the aftermath — large parts of towns like Beit Lif or Kheim reduced to rubble. 

One particularly large explosion took place in the small village of Qantara, where the IDF says it found two large tunnel systems built by Hezbollah. 

The tunnels were detonated with 450 tonnes of explosives, leaving large parts of the village obliterated. Another video released by the IDF showed some of the few remaining buildings in the nearby village of Aadashit being demolished with explosives. The IDF claimed the buildings were “Hezbollah infrastructure”.

Before and after imagery from Planet Labs shows the villages of Qantara and Aadshit in southern Lebanon on March 2 and April 30, 2026. The April imagery shows the aftermath of two large demolitions conducted by the IDF. Large parts of both villages have also been demolished. The UNP 7-1 label details the position of a UN peacekeepers facility.

Bellingcat contacted the IDF for comment on the details in this story but did not receive a response before publication. 

A full size version of the map can be found here.

Bellingcat is a non-profit and the ability to carry out our work is dependent on the kind support of individual donors. If you would like to support our work, you can do so here. You can also subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on Bluesky here, Instagram here, Reddit here and YouTube here.

The post Satellite Imagery Shows Ongoing Demolitions Across Southern Lebanon appeared first on bellingcat.