A spokesman for the banned Arakan Army group in Myanmar said that they released, on Friday, three politicians from the ruling party who had kidnapped them from the restive Rakhine state in the west of the country, describing the matter as a goodwill gesture to build confidence with the government.
The group kidnapped the three politicians, two women and a man, in mid-October while they were campaigning in Rakhine for the elections held on Nov.8. The group held them for more than two months.
“This is a goodwill gesture … We hope that the Myanmar army and government will take similar steps indicative of goodwill as well,” Khin Tho Kha, a spokesman for the Arakan Army, told Reuters in an audio recording sent via text message.
A spokesman for the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, confirmed the transfer of the candidates after their release to a military camp near Palaitoa in Chin State.
Rakhine State has been witnessing for more than a year a struggle between government forces and Arakan Army militants fighting for greater autonomy in the region.
This fighting is separate from the violence that has prompted hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee Rakhine State.
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