Government soldiers are in Rakhine state again, more than two-and-a-half years after a military offensive killed thousands of Rohingya and drove out more than 700,000 others.

This time, they are fighting the Arakan Army, an armed group founded in 2009 that says it is fighting for the rights of the ethnic, mainly Buddhist, Rakhine minority.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that conditions on the ground and an internet shutdown has made reaching people or gathering information increasingly difficult.

Al Jazeera's Florence Looi reports from Buthidaung township, in the northern part of Rakhine state in Myanmar.