Sittwe: History
The area of modern Sittwe was the location of a battle during the conquest of the Kingdom of Mrauk U (later Arakan and now Rakhine State, Myanmar) by the Burmese king Bodawpaya. In 1784, a Burmese expeditionary force said to be 30,000 strong encountered the governor of U-rit-taung Province, General ("Saite-ké") Aung and his force of 3000. Although heavily outnumbered, the Arakanese force tried to fight the Burmese forces on both land and sea, but were brutally crushed. This defeat opened the route towards the inland Arakanese capital of Mrauk-U, which was soon conquered, ending the independence of the Arakanese. According to Arakanese lore, all of the Arakanese defenders were killed.
Sittwe was only a small fishing village at the time of the British conquest of Burma, but its four poorly maintained stupas Akyattaw, Thingyittawdhāt, Letyatalundaw, and Letwetalundaw were later claimed to date to the 16th century and to hold various relics of the Buddha: part of his rear jawbone, his thigh, his right shinbone, and his left shinbone respectively.
The local defenses were stormed by the British under Gen. Morrison in 1825 during the First Anglo-Burmese War. Despite Morrison and many of his men succumbing to malaria, cholera, and other tropical diseases to the point the entire settlement was abandoned for a time, the port was chosen to serve as Arakan's seat of government in 1826 largely because Mrauk U was considered even more unhealthy. It was renamed Akyab after the town's hill and its eponymous pagoda. The bell of the pagoda at the Mahamuni Buddha Temple south of Mandalay was removed to the basement of the Akyab courthouse until 1867.
Sittwe was developed highly into a formal town beginning with Mi Zan Ward under the guidance of British colonial officials alongside Arakanese leaders. Under British occupation, the town grew into an important maritime base, particularly for the export of the area's rice. Despite its bad reputation for disease, historical records indicate Akyab was no more dangerous to its European colonizers than other locations along the India coast. Its population increased to 15,536 inhabitants c. 1865, 33,200 c. 1880, and 31,687 by 1901, when it was the third largest port city in British Burma. In the 1860s, the Consulate General of the United States (Kolkata) had a consular agency in Akyab. The four stupas along the ridge overlooking the town were rebuilt in the late 19th century very plainly and unattractively.
During World War II, Sittwe was an important site of many battles during the Burma Campaign due to its possession of both an airfield and a deepwater port.
On August 13, 1967, in Sittwe, security forces under General Ne Win's regime fired upon civilians in a protest demanding rice, killing over 300 protesters.
Sittwe is the birthplace of political monks in Myanmar. It was the birthplace of U Ottama, the first monk who protested against the colonial British in Myanmar. Also, in the recent 2007 protest marches, known as the Saffron Revolution, it was the monks in Sittwe who started the protest against the military government in Myanmar. Sittwe houses the Dhanyawadi Naval Base, named after the ancient Rakhine city-state of Dhanyawadi.
Since 2012, the Myanmar government has held tens of thousands of Rohingyas in camps at Sittwe. There are now some 140,000 Rohingyas living in poor condition huts with limited electricity and food. …