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.
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Blast at Myanmar camp sounded like it came from the ‘world wars’
/in News‘There is nothing left,’ says a farmer who lost 6 family members in the blast that killed 29
A farmer who lost his wife, three children and his mother when a bomb was dropped on his Kachin state village earlier this week said the powerful explosion wiped out buildings up to one mile away and sounded like something “used in the world wars.”
“Houses built by NGOs and the locals are now left with only iron pillars.” Maran Bauk Lar told Radio Free Asia. “This was a type of bomb that has never been used in Myanmar.”
The explosion at the Mung Lai Hkyet internally displaced persons camp at about 11 p.m. on Monday killed 29 people, including 11 children, and left 57 others wounded, relief workers told RFA.
The camp is near Lai Zar in the mountainous border area between Kachin state and China. Lai Zar is the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, or the KIA, which has fought the Burmese military for decades and controls areas of northern Myanmar.
KIA information officer Col. Naw Bu told RFA earlier this week that he believed the junta was targeting the headquarters in the attack.
Maran Bauk Lar said he was walking to his farm when he heard the explosion. When he returned, he found a deep pit and the remains of his sister-in-law and the other family members.
“My mother’s body was completely dismembered, and her skull was broken,” he said. “Only the bones remain. My wife and children were killed under the collapsed building. Our dormitories were completely destroyed. There is nothing left.”
‘Emboldened by the indifference’
The Mung Lai Hkyet camp has 658 residents, many of whom are now suffering from psychological trauma as they recover from the explosion, relief workers said.
Survivors have been temporarily relocated to a church in Woichyai, an internally displaced persons camp in Lai Zar.
“At the moment, they are sleeping on the floor of the church,” a person helping them said. “They have to start a new life from scratch. They don’t have a single penny in their hands.” \
The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of independent experts working to support human rights efforts in the country, urged the United Nations and its member states to hold the junta responsible for the attack.
“The Myanmar military is so emboldened by the indifference of the international community in response to its decades of atrocity crimes that it is now attacking camps for internally displaced people,” said Yanghee Lee, a member of the council and a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.
“The military is flagrantly massacring the most vulnerable people in society, and yet U.N. entities in Myanmar will not even publicly name the military as the perpetrator,” he said.
At the State Department, spokesman Matthew Miller said that the United States was “deeply concerned” by reports of the explosion.
“We strongly condemn the military regime’s ongoing attacks that have claimed thousands of lives since the February 2021 coup and continue to exacerbate the region’s most severe humanitarian crisis,” he said on Tuesday.
‘The culture of military dictatorship’
Fighting in the area between junta forces and the KIA has intensified since July. Lately, there have been artillery strikes from the junta almost every day, local residents said.
While some residents said they heard a plane just before Monday’s explosion, others told RFA that they heard nothing.
The KIA has formed an investigation team to determine what caused the blast, Naw Bu said, adding that it may have been a bomb dropped by a junta-operated drone.
“They always target the public, not only in our territory in Kachin state, but across the country,” he said of the junta. “It is the culture of military dictatorship.”
RFA’s calls on Wednesday to Win Ye Tun, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesman for Kachin state, for comments on the death toll at Mung Lai Hkyet went unanswered.
Junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that junta troops were not behind the attack on Mung Lai Hkyet. He speculated that it was caused by an accidental explosion at a warehouse where the KIA stores gunpowder.
A Mung Lai Hkyet resident told RFA that it was “totally untrue” that there are weapons factories and arsenals in the camp.
“There is no arsenal,” he said. “There are only civilians who are displaced persons.”
RFA News
Girl, 14, killed by junta shelling in eastern Bago Region
/in NewsThe child was just the latest to lose her life in recent months due to indiscriminate attacks in the area
Junta shelling killed a 14-year-old girl and injured four others in eastern Bago Region’s Pyu Township on Tuesday, according to resistance sources.
The girl, ninth grader Yu Yati Khaing, suffered a fatal injury after a heavy artillery shell hit the village of Kyaw Hla at around 5pm, an officer of the Pyu Township People’s Defence Team (PDT) told Myanmar Now.
“A shell fell on the village at around 1pm, but no one was injured by that one. Then a second shell landed at around 5pm, and the girl was wounded in the abdomen. She died before she could receive treatment,” said the PDT officer.
Troops stationed in the town of Kanyutkwin were responsible for the incident, he added.
The other victims were members of a household living in the village of Nandamate. Further details were unavailable at the time of reporting, but a member of the Bago Region People’s Defence Force confirmed that at least of the injured was a child.
Children are often among the victims of the junta’s indiscriminate bombing in eastern Bago Region, which includes territory controlled by Brigade 3 of the Karen National Liberation Army, an armed wing of the Karen National Union.
On October 3, a nine-year-old girl and a 46-year-old man were injured by a heavy artillery shell in the village of Ngatoekhin in Mone Township, Nyaunglebin District.
Exactly one month earlier, a 12-year-old child was killed by a junta airstrike on Kyet Tet Nyaung Pin, another village in Mone Township. Six other civilians were also injured in the attack, the Karen Human Rights Group reported at the time.
In late August, a woman and her seven-year-old daughter both died while attempting to escape an artillery assault on the village of Pyin Ye Gyi in Nyaunglebin Township. At least four others were injured.
Earlier the same month, two boys were among four people killed by shelling along the Sittaung River in Kyaukkyi Township, Nyaunglebin District.
In late July, a blast at a public rest stop in In Pin Thar, a village in Pyu Township located on the Yangon-Naypyitaw highway, left four children dead and one gravely injured.
No group claimed responsibility for planting the explosive.
Myanmar Now News
Several children among IDPs killed in junta aerial attack in Kachin State
/in NewsTwenty-nine were casualties confirmed as of Tuesday morning in a suspected drone strike on an IDP camp near the KIA headquarters
Nearly 30 internally displaced persons (IDPs) were killed in a suspected junta drone strike on a village near the headquarters of the ethnic armed organisation the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Laiza, northern Myanmar, at around midnight on Monday.
The Myanmar army launched the attack at 11:25pm on the village of Munglai Hkyet, located around two miles from Laiza, which is on Kachin State’s border with China. Around 500 IDPs had been sheltering in a camp in the village.
KIA spokesperson Col Naw Bu told Myanmar Now that as of 8am on Tuesday, they had identified 29 casualties and 56 others who were injured. Forty-four of those wounded were undergoing emergency care at a local medical facility, he said, adding that among the victims were several children and elderly people.
The rescue team was still searching for further bodies at the time of reporting.
“We didn’t hear the sound of any aircraft flying past before the attack. We suspect that it could be a drone strike,” the KIA spokesperson said. “I was told the bomb was dropped right on the camp.”
Col Naw Bu said that there were no KIA military camps near the village but that it had frequently been hit by artillery shells in previous junta attacks. There had been no clashes near Munglai Hkyet on Monday night, he added.
Monday’s attack was the deadliest on KIA territory since the junta’s bombing of a community event in A Nang Pa, Hpakant Township, in October last year. More than 60 people were killed in that assault.
“This is a massacre of our Kachin people through aerial bombings,” Col Naw Bu said of A Nang Pa. “It’s a genocidal act of militarism towards our ethnic people.”
Myanmar Now News
Displaced children killed and injured by remnant explosive in Rakhine State
/in NewsThe weapon, the type and origin of which are as yet unidentified, may be a remnant of fighting between junta and Arakan Army forces that forced people from their homes in the area in 2022
An explosive killed one child and put two others in critical condition when it detonated in a displaced persons’ camp in Rakhine State’s Ponnagyun Township, according to camp residents.
The camp, at which some 200 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been sheltering since clashes broke out between junta and Arakan Army (AA) forces in 2022, is located outside of Yoe Ta Yoke village, some 40 miles northeast of the state capital of Sittwe.
Aung Myint, an IDP camp administrator, told Myanmar Now that the victim killed by the detonation of the unexploded ordnance, Nay Toe Hein, was 10 years old and that the two injured children were both six years old.
“Nay Toe Hein’s injuries were quite severe and he died upon arriving at the hospital. Myo Chit Oo was injured on the head and arms and is undergoing treatment at the Yoe Ta Yoke hospital. Myo Zaw Lin sustained injuries on his legs and genitals,” the camp administrator said.
The type of explosive that detonated in the camp is unknown.
According to IDPs who spoke on condition of anonymity, junta soldiers maintained a base at the Yo Ta Yoke railway station between August and November 2022, during which explosive weapons were regularly used in clashes between the the junta and AA forces.
The explosive that harmed the children was likely a remnant of weapons or ammunition used by the junta, according to the IDPs, but Myanmar Now has yet to confirm this supposition independently.
“Everyone’s just living in fear right now as remnant weapons like this could be anywhere. It’s especially dangerous for children as parents aren’t able to watch them all the time,” said a man in his 30s living in the camp.
The camp’s IDPs are mostly from Buddhaw, some five miles northwest of Yoe Ta Yoke, and neighbouring villages in Ponnagyun Township.
Fighting broke out in late 2018 between the Myanmar military and the AA, continuing until the two sides agreed to an informal ceasefire in November 2020. Armed clashes resumed in August 2022 but were halted by another informal truce within Rakhine State in November of that year.
The junta military swept for mines and other undetonated explosives along the Yangon-Sittwe highway in the early days of the truce. However, according to the chair of the Rakhine Human Rights Advocacy Association Myat Tun, the military failed to sweep in some areas where major battles had taken place.
“It’s a given that there are going to be explosives where they used to have bases. They should have swept those areas for mines,” Myat Tun said.
Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the AA, warned local civilians never to go near battle sites, junta bases or areas controlled by junta forces during a press conference on February 27 of this year.
The AA also called for civil society organisations to increase their efforts to disseminate information to civilians about landmines and unexploded ordnance.
Myanmar Now News
29 dead as blast hits camp of civilians on Myanmar-China border
/in NewsDozens more were injured in what Kachin forces say was an airstrike near their HQ.
Updated Oct. 10, 2023, 02:39 p.m. ET.
Twenty-nine people were killed, including 11 children, when junta air forces dropped a bomb on a displaced persons camp in northern Kachin state, a Kachin Independence Army information officer told Radio Free Asia Tuesday.
Col. Naw Bu said all of the victims were internally displaced people living near Lai Zar in the mountainous border area between Kachin state and China.
Lai Zar is the headquarters of the KIA, which has fought the Burmese military for decades and controls areas of northern Myanmar. Naw Bu claimed the junta was targeting the HQ in the attack, which happened around midnight local time on Monday.
There were 11 children among the dead, who were buried on Tuesday. The 57 injured people have been taken to a nearby hospital. Officials in Lai Zar are still searching for the missing and dead and the identities of those killed is still being investigated.
Naw Bu told RFA that this was not the junta’s usual style of attack. Although the military often fires at Lai Zar with heavy artillery from Burmese army camps at Bum Re Bum and Hka Ya Bum, he said that this bombing may have been carried out by a drone.
“It was not heavy artillery. Something like a plane or a drone. If it was by a jet, its sound could have been heard,” he told RFA, adding that he wasn’t sure yet what type of bomb had been dropped.
He suggested that the military “is threatening us … so that we join their peace talks” with other ethnic armies.
RFA was unable to independently verify what type of weaponry had been used in the attack.
‘There is nothing left for them’
A resident of Lai Zar who was providing assistance told RFA that the injured were still being transported to the hospital as of noon on Tuesday.
“I saw little children injured and breastfeeding infants left by mothers who’ve been killed,” said the resident who, like others interviewed by RFA for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. “We need to provide assistance for these children.”
The resident said that in addition to the 57 injured, “there may be more who did not get to the hospital because the whole refugee camp was wiped out and blown away by the attack.”
Another resident who witnessed the attack said that many homes had been destroyed in the attack by what he described as “highly destructive bombs.”
“Those who live in the camp no longer have homes — there is nothing left for them,” the resident said. “The bomb left a lake-sized hole in the earth.”
He said the attack had also damaged a local church, a preschool building, and the village school.
“All the people at home when the bomb hit died on the spot,” he added.
Targeting civilians
Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun denied that the junta carried out the attack.
“Think about whether bombardment or artillery shelling near the border area at midnight is possible or not,” he told state-controlled media.
“We can attack any rebel headquarters but we don’t do it.”
The junta spokesman claimed only the KIA uses drones to drop bombs in the area, in order to attack junta troops.
The United Nations in Myanmar said it was “deeply concerned” by reports civilians, including women and children, were killed and injured.
“IDP [Internally Displaced Persons] camps are places of refuge, and civilians, no matter where they are, should never be a target,” the U.N. said on its Facebook page.
Tom Andrews, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, told RFA in an interview that the incident at the camp is “one more brutal attack on innocent civilians” and “part of the massive campaign of violence against civilians by the military junta.”
He called the attack and others like it “probable war crimes.”
Jacob, the head of the group Kachin Human Rights Watch, told RFA that the attack was the latest attempt by the military to “wipe out ethnic groups” and that the junta “must take full responsibility for it.”
“Many civilians have been killed by these kinds of highly destructive weapons and airstrikes,” he said. “The junta is fully responsible for these attacks and must be held accountable.”
KIO under attack
The attack comes nearly a year after the military dropped four bombsinto a crowd in Hpakant as the Kachin Independence Organization celebrated its 62nd anniversary. At least 50 were killed and 100 were wounded in the airstrike.
The Kachin Independence Organization is the political wing of the KIA, which has stepped up its resistance since the Burmese military seized power of Myanmar in a coup against an elected government in February 2021.
The village where displaced people in Kachin state are sheltering is 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from Lai Zar.
The border area was a site of heavy fighting in late June when junta forces attempted to capture Lai Zar using heavy artillery.
According to a U.N. report, as of late September Kachin state had over 93,000 internally displaced people. Waingmaw township, where Lai Zar is located, is home to over 20,000 of them living in some two dozen camps.
RFA News
Artillery strikes kill young child, displace entire village in Karenni State
/in NewsResidents have not returned home at the time of reporting out of fear for their safety, instead seeking shelter and holding a funeral for the victim in the forest near the village
Heavy artillery shelling killed an eight-year-old and forced the residents of his village in western Hpruso Township, Karenni State to flee their homes on Saturday, according to local sources.
The young boy, named Kyaw Naing Soe and also called Paraphe in the village, was playing inside his house when heavy shells landed in the village at around 1pm. Paraphe was hit by shrapnel when the shells exploded, and soon died of his injuries, his older sister said.
“The shrapnel went right through my brother’s belly and tore up his intestines. Another shell fell in another yard nearby,” Paraphe’s sister told Myanmar Now on Monday.
She added that there had not been recent fighting near the village, the name of which was withheld for security reasons, and that the shelling continued into the evening, forcing all residents from their homes.
“Everyone fled to the forest. We couldn’t even hold a wake for my brother at our house; we had to hold it in the forest,” the young woman said.
The child’s funeral took place on Sunday. Although no one else in the village was injured in the shelling, villagers staying in the forest were experiencing difficulties, according to Paraphe’s sister.
“It’s hard to find shelter in the forest. We’re in need of shelters,” she said.
Heavy artillery shells fell in another village in western Hpruso Township on Saturday and Sunday evenings, destroying a number of houses, according to a statement released by the Karenni Human Rights Group (KnHRG).
KnHRG believed the shells had been fired from Advanced Military Training Centre No. 14 based in Hpruso, but this was not independently confirmed.
The junta’s air force had also carried out an airstrike on a village in eastern Hpruso Township on October 4, destroying houses and schools.
It has been a month since fighting broke out at the border of Karenni State’s Hpruso and Bawlakhe townships, as the military launched assaults in an attempt to regain control of the area and secure a supply route to the town of Mese, Karenni State.
382 civilians have been killed in Karenni State between the February 2021 coup and late September of this year, of whom 142 died after being forced from their homes, according to information collected and published by the Progressive Karenni People’s Force.
Myanmar Now News