Locals describe the capture of villagers—including children—by junta soldiers who force them to serve as human shields and porters before they are murdered

Junta forces reportedly killed 10 villagers, including two children, in recent days in Sagaing Region, where the military continues to carry out fierce assaults on the civilian population in an attempt to overpower the resistance stronghold. 

Eight of the victims were from Ta Ohn, a village five miles east of Shwebo Township’s administrative centre, which was attacked and looted by a 100-soldier column on June 9. Embedded in the unit were members of the Pyu Saw Htee militia, armed and trained by the Myanmar army, locals said. 

The bodies of seven villagers were not found until Monday, in a stream more than one mile away from the community where they lived. 

“The bodies were badly decomposed. I think they shot them on the hill and dragged them into the swamp,” a villager told Myanmar Now, adding that locals were unable to retrieve and bury the corpses due to the continued junta occupation of the area. 

The victims, who are believed to have been forced to act as human shields and porters for the military column, were identified as Thein Tan, 50; Kyaw Lin, 45; Sein Mahn, Maung Htoo and Win Shwe, all aged 40; Pho Htoo, who was in his 30s; and 20-year-old Ye Wai Lin. 

Another local man, 50-year-old Hnin Maung, was shot dead and his body burned inside Ta Ohn, the villager said, citing eyewitnesses.  

Locals explained that the troops detained multiple residents at the village’s monastery, including women and children. Myanmar Now was unable to confirm the total number of civilians who were abducted. 

“The villagers had nowhere to run when the military entered, firing their guns. They captured everyone that fled and made them stay inside the village. That’s how they detained so many people,” another villager said. 

He said that at least nine of those who were taken by the junta were forced to carry supplies on June 10 and 11 while soldiers raided the neighbouring villages of Ohn Pauk, Maung Tat, Ti Pin and finally Se Gyi, where they were last seen alive by eyewitnesses on June 12.

There, the troops torched five homes identified by the accompanying Pyu Saw Htee members as allegedly belonging to members of the local anti-junta People’s Defence Force (PDF), a Se Gyi resident told Myanmar Now. 

“Everyone had to flee. Some fled on carts while some fled on motorcycles. We had to leave everything behind as they started firing heavy weapons,” he said. “I don’t think words can do justice for what I’m feeling right now. I want revenge but I have no weapon in my hands. It’s really heartbreaking and I feel powerless.”

The seven men from Ta Ohn are believed to have been killed at a site one mile from the village of Se Gyi. The identities of the remaining two individuals who were captured with them were not known at the time of reporting, as well as whether they were still alive. 

Mawlaik Township

Two other murders took place in northwestern Sagaing’s Mawlaik Township, where teenagers staying in an IDP camp near Ma Gyi Tan village were abducted in a junta raid on the site on June 8 and subsequently killed, their bodies found later that day. 

“The children were captured and forced to carry the soldiers’ bags and guide them around the area before ultimately getting killed,” a 50-year-old woman from the area told Myanmar Now. 

They were identified as Sithu and Phyo, both in ninth grade, but whose exact ages were not known. 

Mawlaik_pdf_training.jpeg

Mawlaik PDF members are seen undergoing training in April of this year (Mawlaik PDF)

Moe Di, spokesperson for the Mawlaik PDF—which clashed with the junta column in question on the day of the raid on the camp—confirmed the death of the two boys, saying that their bodies were found with knife wounds and their hands tied behind their backs. 

Myanmar Now was unable to obtain photos of the victims due to the ongoing military-imposed internet blackout on much of Sagaing. 

The military unit combined with another coming from Kalay to the south, forming a new column of some 150 troops in Mawlaik on June 10 before focusing their assaults on villages on the western shore of the Chindwin River, Moe Di explained. 

A PDF member was killed in a battle which took place with the Myanmar army that day, but the resistance group was not able to inflict any casualties, the spokesperson said, adding that his fighters were forced by heavy artillery fire to retreat. 

“We had to withdraw because there was no way for us to defend against such a weapon,” Moe Di said, adding that clashes were still ongoing at the time of reporting.

Hundreds of homes were burned by the military over the next four days, including almost all of the residences in the village of Ma Gyi Tan, as well as houses in Yuwa and Tat Kone, locals said. 

Some 5,000 residents from a total of five communities were forced to flee the arson attacks—which the military has repeatedly denied perpetrating nationwide—to the eastern shores of the Chindwin.

The telecommunication cuts have meant that an assessment of the extent of the damage was still ongoing at the time of reporting. 

Depayin Township

A 30-year-old man in Depayin Township narrowly escaped death during a military raid on his village of Muu Kan Gyi on Tuesday, describing to Myanmar Now how he hid and witnessed more than 75 troops burning 200 other residences. 

“I could see them from the house I was hiding in. They seemed to be enjoying torching the houses,” he said. 

The building in which he had sought refuge reportedly failed to catch fire. 

“One of the army officers they called Kyaw Tun gave them permission to burn the house and two soldiers came inside to torch it,” the man recalled. “I could smell alcohol on them while I was hiding under the bed. I would have been killed if they found me.”

He emerged after the troops left the following morning to find that his own house had been destroyed, along with his food stores. 

“I wish nothing but death on them,” he said of the junta troops. “They’re funded by our tax money, and they are terrorising us.”

Locals said that the same junta column that torched Muu Kan Kyi had previously burned the villages of Ywar Soe and Pauk Chaing in neighbouring Shwebo Township over the weekend, and had gone on to occupy the communities of Ti Pin and Htoo Gyi, all located along the eastern bank of the Muu River. 

A local anti-junta defence force, Min Ma Naing Thein Nghat, reportedly tried to drive out the unit from the village of Ye Kyi Wa, across the Muu River from Muu Kan Gyi—which is situated on the western shore—but they ultimately were forced to retreat by the difference in firepower, the guerrilla group’s leader said. 

“They relentlessly fired both 60mm and 40mm shells at us from the other side of the river. That’s why we had to withdraw,” he told Myanmar Now, adding that a 30-year-old resistance fighter was killed in the clash. 

The leader emphasised the need for the civilian National Unity Government to arm forces like Min Ma Naing Thein Nghat, noting that there was only one gun for every three members of his group. 

“We have to face the junta with handmade rifles and 10 to 15 bullets while 100 percent of the junta personnel are armed with a rifle each,” he explained. “If only they could arm us properly, there isn’t any reason we wouldn’t win over the military.”

Reporting by Thura Maung, Khin Yi Yi Zaw and Ko Cho

Myanmar Now News

Dr Aung Aung Tun is actually alive and being held in Obo Prison along with his sister, Myanmar Now has learned

A clinic owner rumoured to have been killed while under interrogation after his arrest more than a month ago is actually being held in Mandalay’s Obo Prison, according to a source close to his family. 

Dr Aung Aung Tun, 28, was detained with his father, sister and another relative on April 26 for allegedly providing shelter to doctors taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), which aims to topple the junta. His home and three branches of his Thuriya clinic were subsequently sealed off. 

While two of his family members, including his father, were released, there was no update provided by the junta on Aung Aung Tun’s condition or charges since his arrest.

He has been charged with violating Section 50j of the Counterterrorism Law, according to a source close to his family, but it was not clear when the charges were filed or when he had been transferred to Obo Prison. 

“Only he and his sister are still in detention, I heard,” the source told Myanmar Now. 

It was not known at the time of reporting if Aung Aung Tun’s sister was also facing charges.

Several doctors in Mandalay told Myanmar Now that Aung Aung Tun’s arrest was a great loss to the medical field, and described him as having a “heart of gold.”

The military revoked the medical licences of 14 specialist doctors in Mandalay on March 12 and have reportedly been pressuring private hospitals and clinics to not employ staff who have taken part in the CDM and to submit daily patient lists to the junta. 

“Everyone is facing all sorts of troubles under the military’s reign,” Dr Soe Thura Zaw, who was among the doctors who lost their licences, told Myanmar Now at the time. “The only way to solve all those problems once and for all is to end the dictatorship for good.”

Around 80 percent of Mandalay’s medical personnel have joined the CDM, according to data compiled by members of the movement, with many opting to treat people privately rather than work under the junta-controlled health ministry. 

Thuriya_clinic_-_2.Jpeg

Junta personnel seen sealing a branch of Dr Aung Aung Tun’s Thuriya clinic (Supplied)

Medical staff have suffered brutal reprisals for challenging the military. In August last year Dr Maung Maung Nyein Tun died in custody of Covid-19 after being beaten and denied medical treatment. 

During a major crackdown on March 27 of last year, Mandalay-based doctor Thiha Tin Tun was one of over 100 people shot dead by security forces. 

In June, the former head of Myanmar’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout, Dr Htar Htar Lin, was arrested and charged with high treason after she sought to prevent the junta from accessing funds meant to fight the virus. She was sentenced to three years in prison in April.

The civilian National Unity Government has reported that some 35,000 healthcare providers nationwide are taking part in the CDM. 

Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing said late last year that there were 10,000 doctors currently working in the public health sector. 

An officer who is not participating in the CDM told Myanmar Now that the military’s health ministry in Naypyitaw transferred some 200 army doctors and nurses into public hospitals in February and March. 

The junta spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. 

Myanmar Now News

The women said a fellow prisoner’s miscarriage was the result of guard negligence.

Authorities in Myanmar’s notorious Insein Prison have cut off the drinking water supply to the cells of female political prisoners who protested poor living conditions in the facility after a fellow inmate who was denied medical treatment suffered a miscarriage, sources said Friday.

Sources who visited the prison on the outskirts of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon told RFA Burmese that dozens of prisoners have been forced to drink from the toilet after the taps were turned off more than two weeks ago, leaving them with no other source of water.

“The authorities cut off the drinking water since the protest,” said one recent visitor, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity.

“They put 60-70 female prisoners in one prison hall. I was told that all of them are now forced to drink water from the toilet.”

The source said that some of the prisoners have contracted cholera and other diseases after drinking the unclean water.

Last month, a 24-year-old political prisoner at Insein named Cherry Bo Kyi Naing, who is serving a three-year prison sentence for “unlawful association,” suffered an early-term miscarriage after authorities delayed sending her to the hospital for treatment.

On May 23, the female political prisoners held a protest, claiming that Cherry Bo Kyi Naing’s miscarriage was avoidable and the result of negligence by the guards. Two days later, prison authorities shut down the protest and relocated all the female political prisoners to the single prison hall, before shutting off the water supply.

When asked by RFA for comment on the situation at Insein, Prison Department spokesperson Khin Shwe denied reports that the women had been cut off access to drinking water.

“In Insein prison, we provide adequate water supplies for both drinking and hygiene,” he said.

“We don’t give such punishments for incidents that occur in the prison. We have no such thing.”

Attempts by RFA to reach the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bangkok, Thailand, went unanswered Friday. The Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) told RFA it is still making inquiries into the protest at Insein and the response by authorities and was unable to comment.

Kaythi Aye, a former political prisoner in Myanmar who now lives in Norway, told RFA that female prisoners require better hygiene conditions than their male counterparts, and access to clean water is crucial.

“Prisoners are in serious trouble when they don’t have access to clean water, especially during the monsoon season, when mosquitos proliferate and people suffer skin conditions,” she said.

“Wet conditions cause disease to spread further. It’s inhumane to cut off clean water for the female prisoners.”

According to the AAPP, security forces have arrested more than 11,000 civilians in Myanmar since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. There are nearly 1,200 female prisoners across the country, around 200 of which are held in Insein Prison.

Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

RFA News