It was not clear if the six victims were local people or civilians from elsewhere who had been taken hostage as human shields

Local defence forces in Sagaing Region’s Ye-U Township say they found the charred remains of six people on Thursday in a village that had been occupied by regime forces for two days.

Members of an anti-junta group entered the village of Mone Taing Pin after a military column of about 70 soldiers left early Thursday morning. A leader of the group said that the bodies were all found in one house.

No other details were known about the victims, he added.

“We still can’t identify the bodies, as there was nothing left of them but bones. We don’t know if they were local people or if they had been taken from somewhere else as hostages,” said the leader, who identified himself as Bilone.

“The house they were in was completely destroyed by fire,” he added, noting that around 30 of the roughly 400 houses in the village had been reduced to ashes.

Two days earlier, local defence forces clashed with the soldiers who went on to take control of Mone Taing Pin.

According to Bilone, two resistance fighters were killed in that battle after the military opened fire with heavy artillery. Their bodies were also recovered after the junta troops left the area.

“The regime forces picked up the bodies from where they fell and dumped them just outside of the village,” he said.

A funeral was held for the pair later that day, he added.

Anti-regime groups active in the area said that the presence of displaced villagers and other civilians had constrained their efforts to mount attacks on junta forces.

A plan to use explosive devices against the troops that had occupied Mone Taing Pin had to be abandoned after it was learned that they were holding 28 people, including three monks, as human shields.

“We couldn’t attack them. We had already set up the explosives and were waiting for them all night. But we had to cancel the plan because they had hostages,” said KG, the leader of another group in the area.

The soldiers reportedly went from Mone Taing Pin to Ponnagar, another village about 5km to the south.

While no details were available at the time of reporting, KG said that shots were heard after the soldiers arrived at the village.

It was unclear if this indicated renewed fighting, or if some of the hostages had been killed.

Junta officials were not available for comment when contacted by Myanmar Now.

Myanmar Now News

The UN Special Envoy for Myanmar was blocked by the country’s junta from attending a meeting on humanitarian assistance for the Southeast Asian nation, which has been devastated by last year’s military coup.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Friday held the meeting in Cambodia to discuss plans to deliver aid to Myanmar. The regime was represented by its Minister for International Cooperation Ko Ko Hlaing, the junta’s point man on provision of assistance to Myanmar.

Absent from the meeting in Phnom Penh was Noeleen Heyzer, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Myanmar.

According to the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), a group of former UN experts on Myanmar, and the group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, her attendance was blocked by the junta.

“She was invited and then disinvited,” SAC-M said in a statement.

Heyzer was appointed as United Nations special envoy on Myanmar late last year to help solve the Myanmar crisis and facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance. 

The reason she was banned from the meeting was not clear, but it appears likely the move was prompted by her recent meetings with the parliamentary body of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and its relief and resettlement minister Dr Win Myat Aye to discuss issues including humanitarian assistance for Myanmar. 

The regime has branded the NUG as a terrorist organization. Even international diplomats who mention the NUG are subject to junta condemnation.

When Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Abdullah proposed that ASEAN engage informally with the NUG to discuss how humanitarian aid can be distributed to the people of Myanmar, the regime rejected the remark as “irresponsible and reckless”, and warned Malaysian officials against contacting or supporting what it calls a “terrorist group”.

Heyzer has turned out to be the first international envoy to publicly engage with the NUG. Her meetings came after ASEAN was condemned for its failure to make progress on its peace plan for Myanmar. Despite the criticism, the bloc’s officials haven’t met with the shadow government, while being pressed to do so.

Calling Heyzer a crucial actor, the NUG’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said her exclusion from the meeting was yet another insult against the United Nations.

“The National Unity Government also extended its support to the UN envoy and expressed its deep appreciation for her engagement with the National Unity Government and local stakeholders on provision of ASEAN humanitarian assistance to Myanmar,” it said. 

The outcomes of the consultative meeting in Phnom Penh included plans for the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) to deliver aid to areas identified by the Myanmar military junta and in coordination with the junta.

The SAC-M condemned this as flouting fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, saying it would advance the military objectives of the Myanmar junta.

The group said there are 14 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, while an estimated 800,000 people are displaced inside the country. Most are seeking refuge from the junta’s attacks in territory along Myanmar’s borders outside the junta’s control. The junta refuses to permit cross-border aid into these areas.

Irrawaddy News