On February 20, a stream of photos of arrived via WhatsApp. The first was of a young woman with the traditional thanakha tree bark paste carefully applied on her cheeks. She was resting her chin on her palm and smiling sweetly at the camera: the sort of photo a loved one might keep as their phone background. The photos that followed showed her dead on the floor, her left cheek shattered by a bullet, her face spattered with blood.

According to the sender, her name was Ma Ye Ye Soe, she was 19, belonged to the Rakhine Buddhist ethnic group, and lived in a village called Myin Hpu in the remote west of northern Rakhine State’s Rathedaung Township. She was caught by a stray bullet, allegedly fired by Myanmar army soldiers as they sought to flush out Arakan Army (AA) insurgents. A four-year-old girl was injured, too. These details were confirmed in the local press a day later, all correct bar the fact that she was reportedly 18, not 19. The Myanmar army has since denied responsibility for the killing, pointing the finger at militants.

Rakhine State was, in 2016 and 2017, the site of ethnic cleansing and several genocidal massacres of stateless Rohingya, leaving at least 6,700 dead and causing over 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. This has drawn a worldwide chorus of condemnation and calls for International Criminal Court referral for those responsible, tarnishing both the country’s image and that of its leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The state has also been home to a simmering conflict between Rakhine ethnic insurgents and the Myanmar army or Tatmadaw. The exact number of combatants and civilians killed in the Tatmadaw-Arakan Army conflict is unclear, but the violence has so far displaced over 10,000 people and caused massive disruptions to the central government’s ability to administer conflict-wracked parts of the state.