ND Burma
ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
Recent Posts
- Myanmar military still bombing towns despite earthquake crisis, rebels say
- PRESS STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY CALLS FOR DISASTER RELIEF FOR EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS AND AFFECTED COMMUNITIES IN MYANMAR
- AAPP Launches its New Report on Justice, the Judiciary and the Weaponization of Law to Repress Civilians in Burma
- Junta offensives leave 4 dead, thousands displaced in northwest Myanmar
- Open letter: Special Envoy’s conflicts of interest signal urgent need for investigation and complete end of mandate
Over 67 killed by airstrikes in Arakan State since Sunday; ICRC requests humanitarian access during visit to Naypyidaw
/in NewsOver 67 killed by airstrikes in Arakan State since Sunday
The Arakan Army (AA) claimed that more than 50 people, including prisoners of war, were killed during airstrikes carried out by the Burma Air Force on the No. 2 Border Guard Post in Maungdaw Township, located near the Burma-Bangladesh border in northern Arakan State on Monday. It reported that members of pro-military Rohingya armed groups and the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) were among the dead.
The AA added that a fighter jet opened fire on U.N. buildings in Waithali village and at 3 Mile Point in Maungdaw on Sept. 9. The AA seized control of the No. 2 Border Guard Post on July 6. Another 17 people, including children and healthcare workers, were also reportedly killed and 10 were injured during airstrikes on a healthcare center in Pauktaw Township, south of the Arakan State capital Sittwe, on Sunday.
“It is the place where the AA provided healthcare for prisoners and prisoners of war. They dropped bombs with their aircraft twice,” an anonymous source from the AA told DVB. Pauktaw came under the control of the AA on Jan. 24. Min Aung Hlaing said during a visit to the Shan State capital Taunggyi on Sept. 3 that the military would launch retaliatory attacks in areas controlled by resistance forces.
Military prepares for resistance attacks in eastern Kachin State
Kachin Independence Army (KIA) General Sumlut Gun Maw condemned the regime’s order for heightened defense against the KIA and People’s Defense Force (PDF) in the Kachin State Special Region 1, which is located in northeastern Kachin near the China border, on Monday. The area is controlled by the pro-military Kachin Border Guard Force (BGF).
“The order should not have been issued,” Sumlut Gun Maw posted on his social media account. The martial order was issued in June and signed by Zahkung Ting Ying, the chief of the Kachin Special Region 1. He directed the BGF and militias based in Chipwi, Tsawlaw, Kanpaikti – which make up the special region – to “implement strict defense measures.”
The regime order claimed that “the KIA and PDF are conducting offensives to disrupt the peace of local ethnic communities and the country” in the region. Much of Burma’s lucrative rare earth mining is conducted in the Kachin Special Region 1. The Kachin BGF was formed by the New Democratic Army – Kachin under military chain of command in 2009.
ICRC requests humanitarian access during visit to Naypyidaw
A delegation led by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric met with Min Aung Hlaing in the capital Naypyidaw on Monday. Spoljaric called on the regime to allow greater humanitarian access to conflict-affected areas of the country.
“Many families in Myanmar are going without basic medicines and health care, face food shortages and have limited access to clean water and sanitation. They live with the fear of conflict and violence. The disruption of livelihoods is leaving countless people without the means to sustain themselves,” Spoljaric stated in a press release on Monday.
Spoljaric visited Burma from Sept. 5-9 and met with colleagues at the Myanmar Red Cross in Naypyidaw on Sunday. This is her first trip to Burma since becoming ICRC president in October 2022. The previous ICRC president, Peter Maurer, visited Burma in June 2021 – four months after the military coup. The regime claimed that it is adhering to international humanitarian law.
News by Region
KACHIN—At least four civilians were killed and at least six were injured during fighting between the KIA and the military in Saitaung village of Hpakant Township on Sept. 5. Ywat Zaw Khaung from the Peace-talk Creation Group, which mediates between the military and resistance forces, was among the injured.
“I heard the representatives of the Peace-talk Creation Group negotiated with the military not to use violence against the public, but it seems the military did not accept and is conducting retaliatory shelling,” Naw Bu, the KIA spokesperson told DVB. Around 1,500 civilians living around Saitaung village have been displaced from their homes due to the fighting.
KAREN—Cyber scam centers operating in Shwe Kokko, located 12 miles (20 km) north of Myawaddy, have reportedly relocated to territory under the control of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) in Karen State, as well as Laos and Cambodia, since the Karen BGF issued a warning for them to leave by October.
“They may move to Cambodia or Laos but they will return to Burma. I have seen a lot of job postings for these businesses,” an anti-human trafficking group working along the Thailand-Burma border told DVB. The Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar has documented that there are nearly 50 cyber scam compounds operating along the Thai border.
SHAN—Heavy flooding has affected towns in eastern Shan State, including Kengtung and Tachileik, since the remnants of Typhoon Yagi arrived in the region on Monday. The flooding has also impacted areas under the control of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA).
“The stream on the [Mongpawk] outskirts near the Chinese border overflowed. In the morning, the water began to rise, and by evening, it had started to gradually recede,” a Mongpauk resident told DVB. Water levels exceeded critical thresholds in Tachileik on Monday, according to local sources. The regime’s Department of Meteorology and Hydrology has issued a heavy rainfall warning for most of Burma.
DVB News
Myanmar junta airstrikes kill dozens, including prisoners, rebels say
/in NewsThe military has responded to a string of setbacks in Rakhine state with more intense air attacks.
Myanmar’s military has killed 70 people, including many of its troops in rebel captivity, in two airstrikes in Rakhine state where Arakan Army insurgents have been making major gains against junta forces, the group said.
The Arakan Army, or AA, has captured many members of the military and pro-junta militia in advances over recent months in which they have pushed junta forces back into just a few pockets of territory in Myanmar’s western-most state.
The military has responded with airstrikes, taking an increasingly deadly toll of civilians in areas under AA control, the rebels and rights groups say.
On Sunday, an airstrike in Pauktaw township, just east of the state capital of Sittwe, killed at least 17 people, including seven prisoners, and wounded 10, the AA said in a statement.
“People didn’t have time to run because the plane flew in so quickly,” said one resident of the area, who declined to be identified for safety reasons.
On Monday, junta jets launched an airstrike in Maungdaw township, in the north of Rakhine state near the border with Bangladesh, killing more than 50 people, the AA said in another statement.
The junta has not released any information about the attacks and telephone calls to spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered.
Bombs dropped in Maungdaw hit a former military position captured by the AA, about five kilometers (three miles) east of Maungdaw town, where the insurgents have detained prisoners, including members of the mostly Mulsim Rohingya community who joined a pro-junta militia.
The AA said a U.N. building in Wai Thar Li village was also bombed. Radio Free Asia RFA tried to contact the U.N. office in Myanmar Yangon but a staff member said the office could not respond outside working hours.
International humanitarian organizations have been helping civilians displaced by fighting in the region but most groups have withdrawn staff and suspended their work as the security situation has deteriorated.
The AA has warned against attacks in densely populated areas under its control. The junta denies targeting civilians.
RFA News
Myanmar armed group says 11 civilians killed in junta air strikes
/in NewsBANGKOK —
Myanmar military air strikes in northern Shan state killed 11 civilians and wounded 11 more, a spokeswoman for an ethnic minority armed group battling the junta told AFP on Friday.
The junta is battling widespread armed opposition to its 2021 coup and its soldiers are accused of bloody rampages and using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities.
“They bombed at two areas in Namhkam” town on Friday around 1 a.m. local time, Lway Yay Oo of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) said.
The strikes killed 11 and wounded 11, she said, adding that the office of a local political party had been damaged.
The dead were five men, four women and two children, she said.
Namhkam is around 5 kilometers from the border with China’s Yunnan province, with TNLA fighters claiming control of the town following weeks of fighting last year.
Images on social media showed people sifting through rubble and carrying a young person who appeared to be wounded.
One video showed several destroyed buildings. AFP reporters geolocated that video to a site in Namhkam and said it had not appeared online before.
AFP was unable to reach a junta spokesman for comment.
Since last year the military has lost swaths of territory near the border with China in northern Shan state to an alliance of armed ethnic minority groups and “People’s Defense Forces” battling to overturn its coup.
The groups have seized a regional military command and taken control of lucrative border trade crossings, prompting rare public criticism by military supporters of the junta’s top leadership.
Earlier this week junta chief Min Aung Hlaing warned civilians in territory held by ethnic minority armed groups to prepare for military counterattacks, state media reported.
The junta also announced this week that it had declared the TNLA a “terrorist” organization.
Those found supporting or contacting the TNLA and two other ethnic minority armed groups, the Arakan Army, and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, can now face legal action.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in 2021 and launched a crackdown that sparked an armed uprising.
Conflict since the coup has forced more than 2.7 million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.
VOA News
Human Rights Situation weekly update (Aug 22 to 31, 2024)
/in HR Situation, NewsHuman Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 22 to 31, 2024
Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in the Sagaing Region, Magway Region, Bago Region, Mandalay Region, Tanintharyi Region, and Shan State from August 22nd to 31st. Head of Prison which works under Military Junta, tortured and blackmailed the political prisoners in Thayet Prison, Magway Region, and Thayawaddy Prison, Bago Region. The Military Junta is arresting and blackmailing the fully aged civilians for military service in the Yangon Region, Ayeyarwady Region, Bago Region, and Naypyidaw.
Over 20 civilians died, and over 20 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. Over 100 civilians were arrested by the Military Junta within a week.
Infogram
Myanmar military court jails 144 villagers detained after massacre
/in NewsJunta troops suspect the villagers were helping Arakan Army insurgents closing in on the state capital.
Myanmar’s junta jailed 144 civilians for supporting insurgents more than three months after they were detained following a massacre of nearly 80 people in their village, which residents blamed on junta troops, families of the detained told Radio Free Asia on Monday.
Relatives of the jailed residents of Byain Phyu in Rakhine state dismissed the convictions, denying they had supported Arakan Army insurgents, who have been making significant advances on the battlefield against the military.
“How can we support the AA when day to day we’re struggling ourselves and hardly making ends meet?” said a relative of one of those jailed on Friday under a law against unlawful association by a military court in the main prison in the western city of Sittwe.
“But the court didn’t accept this and convicted them anyway.”
Byain Phyu is on the outskirts of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, and junta forces have been keen to ensure that AA fighters can not dig into positions there from which to attack the city.
Shortly after the May 29 killings, a junta spokesman said the military had conducted a clearance operation there and rebel forces had attacked with “drone bombs and artillery”.
At the time, the military said it found bunkers built from sandbags in houses throughout the village, which it said were positions for AA soldiers.
The military detained some 300 villagers at the time. Only four people on trail on Friday were found not guilty, residents said, adding that more than 150 more were due to be tried by the court on Monday.
The AA has made unprecedented gains in fighting in Rakhine state since late last year, leaving junta forces increasingly confined to pockets of territory, including Sittwe.
A Sittwe resident, who also declined to be identified for safety reasons, said junta forces were enraged by their setbacks and were taking out their frustration on civilians.
“Sources close to the court told us before that only 38 people would be jailed and the rest would be released, but days before the verdict, the Sittwe-based Regional Command Headquarters was attacked with heavy weapons by the Arakan Army,” he said.
“It seems as if the attack might have caused casualties, so they convicted the villagers.”
Neither the junta’s main spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, nor the Rakhine states junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, responded to attempts by RFA to contact them for information.
Byain Phyu is largely deserted now with nearly 2,000 of villagers sheltering in monasteries and schools in Sittwe, residents said, with junta troops deployed to prevent anyone returning.
In Sittwe, nervous junta soldiers are conducting many checks and detaining people, residents said.
The AA has also made gains in both the north and south of Rakhine state.
RFA News
More than 40,000 war displaced flood across border into Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region
/in NewsTwo-thirds of the population of Rakhine’s Gwa township have fled fighting between the military and ethnic rebels.
As the fight between the military and ethnic rebels for the southernmost township in Myanmar’s Rakhine state escalates, more than 40,000 civilians have streamed across the border into neighboring Ayeyarwady region, residents said Thursday.
The push to the southern border with Ayeyarwady region is the latest advance for the Arakan Army, or AA, which ended a truce with the military in November and has gone on to control nine townships and three sub-townships in Rakhine state, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state to the north.
The AA’s advance south into areas traditionally on the edge of its influence could signal that the army wants to establish a foothold in central Myanmar and take on a more central role in any post-conflict national reconciliation process, rather than staying on the sidelines as a marginal ethnic armed group.
Speaking to RFA Burmese on Thursday, residents of Ayeyarwady region’s Thabaung township said that the fighting in Rakhine state’s Gwa township is now centered on Kyeintali town, and that 42,434 civilians – or two-thirds of Gwa’s population – had crossed into Ayeyarwady seeking shelter over the past two weeks.
“War-displaced persons have arrived in Thar Paung township via jungle routes, as they were prohibited from entering at junta checkpoints on the roads,” said one resident of Thabaung who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “They had nothing to eat for about seven days during their journey.”
The resident said that many of the displaced lack travel documents and residence permits from their local officials, and that authorities in Ayeyarwady are allowing them to stay on the outskirts of their towns.
Most of the displaced have taken refuge in the Ayeyarwady townships of Thabaung, Yegyi, Kyonpyaw, Kyangin, Myanaung, Kwin Kauk and Nga Thai Chaung, he added.
Prices are high
Residents of Ayeyarwady told RFA that with the influx of displaced people from Gwa township, home rental prices have risen three-fold from about 200,000 kyats (US$95) to 600,000 kyats (US$285) per month.
A resident of Gwa township who fled to Nga Thai Chaung township in Ayeyarwady said that the financial situation facing the displaced is dire.
“Around two-thirds of residents from Gwa township are now displaced persons, while the remaining one-third is still trapped in Gwa,” he said. “All the commodity prices, except rice, are high here [in Ayeyarwady]. We all are facing various challenges.”
RFA News