Two-year-old Myanmar video shared as Bangladesh’s Sajek incident
A video recently posted on X claims that the scene depicts a clash between the Bangladesh Army and armed groups in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. However, Dismislab’s fact-check has found that the video is not of any incident in Bangladesh but of Myanmar. According to a report by the Myanmar-based news outlet “The Irrawaddy,” the video shows scenes of a clash between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military in Maungdaw, Rakhine State, in 2024.
The video was posted on October 27 from an X account named “Rishabh Bhat.” The 17-second video features the sound of gunfire and shows a group of people in military uniforms.The caption reads, “Recent footage from Sajek, Bangladesh. Bangladesh’s hill-based insurgent armed groups are fighting against Bangladesh Army.” The words CHTHill, Bangladesh, and frontalforce were used as hashtags in the video.
In the course of the investigation, a reverse image search was conducted using keyframes from the video. This led Dismislab to find a video report published on September 2, 2024, from the verified Facebook page of the Myanmar-based news outlet “The Irrawaddy.” The report’s description states, “A video released by the ethnic Arakan Army (AA) recently shows its troops fighting against regime forces in Maungdaw town in northern Rakhine State.”
An exact match was found between the circulating video and the footage between 3 minutes 52 seconds to 4 minutes 08 seconds of the 7-minute-08-second report.
The video report also notes that the incident took place in the town of Maungdaw, near the Bangladesh border. During the clashes to capture the town, the Arakan Army captured multiple soldiers of the military junta, as well as multiple soldiers of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), and the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA), who had fought on the side of the military junta. The report cites the Arakan Army’s Info Desk as its source.
In addition, the same scenes are seen in videos posted on two YouTube channels named Ayeyarwaddy Times and Narinjara TV News. The headlines of the videos highlight the clash between the Arakan Army and military junta forces at Lemekna. However, the two videos were published on July 27 and October 11, 2025, respectively.
In other words, the video circulated with the claim of showing a clash between armed groups and the Bangladesh Army in Sajek is of a clash between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military in the country’s Rakhine State. The video was published on September 2, 2024, which means it is more than two years old.
