The stabbing and killing video is from Myanmar, not from Bangladesh

A video showing several people being killed by having their throats slit and being stabbed has spread on social media. Some shared it claiming the video shows scenes from the hilly areas of Bangladesh, while others claimed it was from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where the Arakan Army allegedly killed Rohingya. However, fact-check by Dismislab found that the actual incident was a 2023 video of several people killed by the armed group Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA) in Myanmar. It has no connection to Bangladesh.

The circulating video shows one person in military uniform and another in civilian clothing, stabbing and killing several people. A Facebook user who shared the video wrote, “Corridors will be given inside Bangladesh out of fear of indigenous armed groups.” The shared video also had the text saying, “My golden Bengal is now under the control of jihadi Taliban.” That post has been viewed more than 73,000 times so far. Meanwhile, some others shared the same video claiming it was the footage of Rohingya genocide. Several Facebook users (1, 2, 3) wrote, “Arakan Army is brutally killing Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar,” or “In Arakan Rohingya Muslims are being murdered”.

To verify whether the incident happened in Bangladesh, keyframes from the video were searched online, which led to multiple reports published by Myanmar-based media. Photos in those reports matched exactly the scenes from the video that was being spread as footage from Bangladesh’s hilly areas or Myanmar’s Rakhine State. A July 24, 2023, report published by The Seventy Four Media, a Kachin State-based news outlet in Myanmar, mentioned this killing. The report said the incident took place in Kachin State, Myanmar. It also noted that the person in military clothing in the video wore an armband of the Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA). This confirmed that the killers were members of the SNA, not the Arakan Army.

Later, Myanmar media outlet Irrawaddy published news quoting a survivor of the incident. The images used in that report also exactly matched the video recently shared as footage of Bangladesh’s hilly areas. The Irrawaddy report said the incident happened in Sezin village, south of Hpakant town in Kachin State, on January 19, 2023. Several detainees who had been held for months by the military council were handed over to armed men there. The survivor identified the men as members of the SNA by their language.

Sezin village is on the border of Homalin Township and Kachin State, where most residents belong to the Shanni ethnic group. The SNA is also active in various areas of Kachin State and Sezin. On the other hand, the Rohingya mainly live in Rakhine State. Rakhine is located on Myanmar’s western coast along the Bay of Bengal. Kachin, by contrast, is a mountainous region in northern Myanmar bordering China and India.

The SNA camp near Sezin village had been attacked and captured by the Kachin People’s Defense Force (KPDF) and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). At that time, the video clips in question were collected from the phones of captured SNA soldiers. A KPDF official later sent the videos to the Irrawaddy.

Since late June 2022, fighting had been ongoing in Sezin village of Hpakant Township, Kachin State, between the KIA, PDF, and the military council. In early August in the same year, the KIA and PDF jointly captured military camps, a police station, and an SNA base near Sezin. In response, the military carried out ground and airstrikes. According to local sources cited by the Irrawaddy, SNA troops were also involved in the operation, though they denied it. Several villagers fled during the attack but were captured by the military. A few months later, they were handed over to the SNA, and the killings took place.

In other words, claims that the video showed killings in Bangladesh’s hilly areas or Rohingya being killed by the Arakan Army in Rakhine State are completely false. The video actually shows killings in Myanmar’s Kachin State by the SNA, targeting people suspected of being members of anti-junta armed groups.

Disclaimer: The original version of this fact-check report was published in Bengali on Dismislab’s Bengali website on August 24, 2025. The English translation was completed later; however, to maintain time accuracy and avoid any potential misinterpretation, the English version has been published with the original publication date.