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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Seven civilians killed in 3 shootings in Myanmar’s Yangon
/in NewsThe 3 incidents involved the military or anti-junta forces, sources said.
At least seven civilians were killed in three separate shootings involving the military or anti-junta forces in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon on Thursday evening, according to witnesses.
The incidents took place in Yangon’s Pabedan and southern Dagon Myothit townships and left six men and a woman dead, sources told RFA Burmese.
In one of the shootings, a rickshaw driver and two young men were killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a junta soldier on duty near the Maha Thein Dawgyi Ordination Hall in Pabedan at around 3:30 p.m., according to a resident of the township, who declined to be named for security reasons.
“[The soldier] was shot near a betel nut stall on a side street near Ordination Hall. I didn’t hear anything for a while, and then a [military truck] arrived on the scene. The soldiers were yelling and cursing,” the resident said.
“Then I heard [around 10] gunshots continuously. The rickshaw man and two other young men who were hit died on the spot. I feel sad that these men were shot for no fault of their own.”
The resident said the bodies of the three victims were taken away by a Red Cross ambulance around 30 minutes later.
Other residents of Pabedan told RFA that authorities closed Maha Bandoola and Sule Pagoda roads, which run through the center of the township, following the shooting, but reopened them this morning. Meanwhile, the security force presence inside the Maha Thein Dawgyi Ordination Hall has been doubled, they said.
Posts on a Telegram social media network channel used by junta supporters said the two young men had “carried out an attack” on the soldier at the betel nut stall and were killed when security forces returned fire.
However, a spokesman for an anti-junta armed group known as the Yangon UG Association rejected the claims.
“We will attack and flee with motorcycles or cars. We will even attack on foot and run when we have an escape route. But it doesn’t make sense to attack [a military post] with a rickshaw,” said the spokesman.
“[The military] might be trying to protect themselves. Or they might just be lying to cover up the act. These urban guerrillas are young people in an age of globalization, they aren’t morons. Everyone knows you can’t launch an attack from a rickshaw.”
The spokesman added that urban guerrillas don’t carry weapons in Yangon because junta troops carry out strict security checks in the city.
Southern Dagon Myothit shootings
Also on Thursday, a resident of southern Dagon Myothit’s Ward 53 said junta soldiers shot and killed a man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s inside their home.
“When we found them, they were already dead. The man had gunshot wounds on his chest and stomach,” the resident said.
“They were shot in their own house. When we checked with people nearby, they said the two who had been killed were peaceful people. We don’t know exactly who shot them.”
Later the same night, the anti-junta South Dagon Urban Guerrilla Group said that its members had killed the deputy administrator of Ward 71 and an office worker from Ward 25’s General Administration Department, who it claimed were military informers.
RFA was unable to independently confirm the killings in southern Dagon Myothit township.
The military has yet to release any information about the killings, and further details about the incidents were not immediately available.
Nan Lin, a member of the Yangon-based anti-junta group University Old Students’ Association, told RFA that urban guerrilla units have attacked bunkers, police posts and local administration offices, leaving authorities on edge and ready to fire at anything they deem suspicious.
“More and more people have lost their lives because of the military’s indiscriminate shootings,” he said.
“Urban guerrilla forces are staging all kinds of different attacks. Because of this, the soldiers feel they aren’t safe anywhere,” Nan Lin said. “There are quite a lot of cases now where [troops] open fire at anything suspicious, sometimes even at their own people.”
In Yangon, authorities are regularly arresting people at their homes during checks of guest lists and shooting at anyone they suspect of being members of anti-junta groups, residents told RFA.
According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), authorities have killed at least 2,327 civilians and arrested 15,691 others in the nearly 20 months since Myanmar’s military seized power in a Feb 1, 2021, coup — mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
RFA News
The world needs to recognise—and support—Myanmar’s ‘humanitarian resistance’
/in NewsAs UN aid agencies line up to sign deals with the junta, local groups fighting “for victory and humanity” continue to be the country’s real saviours
The recent rush of UN agencies to sign memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Myanmar’s military junta has raised important questions about who is really carrying the burden of humanitarian assistance in the country—international aid agencies, or local relief groups engaged in resisting the regime?
In a recent paper, Hugo Slim, a UK-based expert on the ethics of humanitarian aid, offers some valuable insight on this issue, which has been the subject of often passionate debate in Myanmar. Titled “Humanitarian resistance: Its ethical and operational importance,” this paper examines the respective roles of local civil society organisations and activist groups participating in the Spring Revolution on the one hand, and UN agencies and the INGO aid community on the other.
There is growing frustration on both sides. Those who work for international aid agencies, especially foreign nationals, feel that they are being unfairly criticised for trying to assist vulnerable populations. While they lament that this may mean making “many hard and unpleasant compromises in order to serve higher humanitarian imperatives,” as one such individual put it to me recently, they insist that this is necessary in order to function in a very complex situation.
On the other side, local activists feel that they are speaking for most in Myanmar when they say that the country has been largely abandoned by the international community—not least by the UN and its humanitarian agencies. Looking back over the past 19 months, what they see is the failure of UN agencies and INGOs to provide aid where it is needed most. Only a trickle of aid has come into the country, and it has only reached areas where the regime has allowed them to operate.
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Villagers flee their homes as junta troops carry out raids in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township in July
In Slim’s terminology, this is a dispute between what he calls the “local humanitarian resistance community” and the community of “conventional international humanitarian agencies.” The first term in particular is helpful in understanding the core of the disagreement, because it highlights the emergence of an alternative to more traditional thinking about the place of humanitarian relief work in the context of conflict.
Since its attempt to seize power in February of last year, Myanmar’s military has faced protests, civil disobedience and armed resistance; in response, it has unleashed harsh, indiscriminate, large-scale and systematic violence. Its sole aim is to crush dissent at any cost, and its inability to achieve this goal has only made it more brutal. Currently in control of less than 50% of the country’s territory, and vulnerable to attack even in areas where it has a strong presence, it routinely deploys jets, helicopters and ground troops to carry out “clearance operations” anywhere that it cannot impose its rule. The result has been a huge and growing humanitarian crisis.
This crisis has been created by the junta, and nobody else. As it continues to worsen day by day, week by week, the people of Myanmar have responded with an impressive display of what Slim calls “humanitarian resistance,” which doesn’t just address immediate needs, but also recognises that inflicting suffering on the civilian population is not just an unfortunate side effect of the country’s conflict, but an integral part of the military’s strategy. Thus, no amount of international aid will help as long as the regime continues with its systematic dislocation of civilians and destruction of their property and livelihoods.
KNU says more than 150,000 displaced in its territory
Figures released by the group suggest that Myanmar’s post-coup humanitarian crisis is rapidly escalating
Within Myanmar, local humanitarian resistance groups enjoy the trust and appreciation of the general population, while international aid agencies are increasingly regarded with frustration and even anger. Conversely, people outside of the country, who have little knowledge or recognition of the value of resistance humanitarianism, continue to hold the international agencies in high esteem, if only because these agencies have been so skillful at promoting themselves on the world stage.
There are a number of reasons that many in Myanmar take such a dim view of international agencies. One is that they are seen as remote, top-down organisations. They are also far less numerous and diverse than local, grass-roots groups. But perhaps the most important reason is that they see themselves as obliged to remain “neutral” and “non-partisan”—unlike local humanitarian resistance groups, which, according to Slim, “simultaneously [take] sides for human life and human freedom” and “combine a desire for victory and humanity.”
In his paper, Slim looks at Myanmar and Ukraine as examples of humanitarian resistance in action. In both countries, he sees evidence of how the humanitarian response to their respective political crises aims to serve “the cause of victory”:
“In Myanmar, people committed to the resistance are boycotting government institutions and have either created new associations for the rescue and relief of people suffering from the dictatorship’s violence and increasing poverty, or they are surging existing social and religious institutions for the same effect. In Ukraine, where an entire nation is fighting for survival against outside aggression, people have come together en masse as volunteer auxiliaries to dramatically expand the provision of food relief, emergency housing and education, social work, civil defence and ambulance and fire services.”
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Volunteer medics travel on foot to remote villages in Karenni State (Loyalty Mobile Team)
According to Slim, “All these welfare activities combine a humanitarian and a resistance purpose in the same activity. Being a resistance humanitarian in Myanmar or Ukraine means playing your part in the struggle. Working as a medic, a firefighter or an emergency teacher is experienced and understood as a valuable form of civil resistance.”
The fact that many see their humanitarian activities as part of a political struggle in no way detracts from the effectiveness of their efforts, says Slim. Indeed, he observes that humanitarian resistance has had a “significant” impact in terms of meeting people’s needs:
“Tens of thousands of people have been rescued from Ukrainian cities under Russian attack by informal groups using their own cars and covert routes in a continuous relay of rescue runs. These rescuers see their humanitarian work as part of the political struggle against the Russian invasion. In Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of people are being helped with food, healthcare and emergency education by rescue committees and relief committees formed by people from the [Civil Disobedience Movement] who have left their government jobs to work for alternative, resistance institutions.”
Unlike international aid organisations, which are relatively generously funded by donor countries, the local humanitarian resistance community is primarily financed by members of the public who are in many cases struggling with hardships of their own due to the economic fallout of the coup. An energized and self-organised diaspora is also making a contribution.
Another difference is that local humanitarian resistance work relies heavily on volunteers, whereas international aid agencies are mostly staffed by well-paid professionals. Expats employed to do international aid work typically follow a career path that takes them from one “crisis spot” to another. Most currently working “on Myanmar” do so from a safe distance—from neighbouring Thailand or even farther afield. And while they can expect to advance in their careers even under these circumstances, many humanitarian resistance workers actually inside the country have had to abandon their professions to oppose the injustice and repression of the military regime.
Needless to say, “resistance humanitarians” don’t just sacrifice their careers—they also risk their lives. On numerous occasions people providing aid have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned. Some have been killed.
Military demands Mandalay hospitals submit patient lists in ‘bid to prevent treatment’ of injured resistance fighters
The junta has also revoked the licences of 14 medics and threatened to shut down private clinics that employ CDM doctors
Meanwhile, conventional humanitarian agencies have been struggling to respond to the suffering in Myanmar. Their mode of operations requires the explicit or implicit consent of the regime, which has hugely restricted what they can do. But beyond this, they have also been constrained by their own bureaucratic character, which makes them extremely slow and expensive, as well as prone to self-censorship.
In short, there has been an enormous disproportionality between these two very different aid communities, in terms of their cost, effectiveness, and risk. This raises the question of which side actually receives the most money from international donors. The answer, of course, is that almost all funding flows to major agencies or organisations, while virtually none reaches groups engaged in humanitarian resistance.
This is not a new situation. It has long been the case that local groups have had to operate on shoestring budgets, while international aid agencies have been far more lavishly funded. This has been a source of some resentment among local aid groups, but most have hesitated to speak out about it, as they see the international aid agencies as being at least potential allies against the real enemy—Myanmar’s repressive military.
More recently, however, many have become more outspoken about this disparity, as they watch multiple UN agencies hasten to sign MOUs with the junta. In effect, according to those who are now witnessing this spectacle from the trenches of Myanmar’s ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, these agencies have broken their long-held principle of neutrality by reaching agreements with a regime that has no legitimacy in the eyes of the country’s people.
This cannot be defended as pragmatism. A genuinely pragmatic approach would be one that involves deals with both the regime and with the National Unity Government and governing entities in liberated ethnic territories. This would enable a more fair and balanced distribution of aid into areas that are currently being served almost entirely by humanitarian resistance organisations.
At this point, there are few in Myanmar who believe that the UN agencies are primarily motivated by a desire to deliver aid more effectively. Rather, they are seen as acting mostly out of institutional self-interest. Meanwhile, resistance organisations and networks continue to do what they have been doing to save the country from the coup regime. They need to be noticed, recognised and supported by donor countries. Yangon-based UN agencies and INGOs will not provide for them.
Igor Blazevic is a prominent human rights campaigner based in the Czech Republic. He is a lecturer at Educational Initiatives, a training program for Myanmar activists, and a senior adviser with the Prague Civil Society Centre.
Myanmar Now News
AN OPEN LETTER FROM 567 CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS CALLING FOR LEADERS OF THE ETHNIC RESISTANCE ORGANIZATIONS NOT TO ENGAGE WITH MYANMAR’S STATE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL
/in Press Releases and Statements26 September 2022
The undersigned Civil Society Organizations urge the Ethnic Resistance Organization not to attend the military sham Peace Dialogue, a sham intended as a way to distract and exit from their own political, military, and economic crisis.
The armed conflict currently unfolding must be understood clearly as a battle between the military and the people. Min Aung Hlaing led-terrorist military has ignored the will of the people in the election and attempted to stage a coup since February 1, 2021 and arrested the elected members of parliament. Since they refused to accept the result of the 2020 November General Election, which was accepted by the international community as a free and fair election and in which the people freely cast their votes, they became merely a terrorist organization which no longer has legitimacy domestically and internationally.
In order to take power the military cruelly tortured and killed peaceful protesters who protested against their unlawful actions according to democratic practice. Therefore they are regarded as merely a terrorist organization according to international and domestic laws.
It is evident that the terrorist military council is targeting civilians across the country every day. The terrorist military is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by torching villages, looting civilian properties, burning civilians alive, including children and women, mass killing, raping women, shelling civilian sites with artilleries, and inflicting aerial attacks and bombardments on civilian sites, religious buildings, schools and IDP camps.
As the terrorist military council violated the ASEAN’s five-point Consensus and ignored the international community, they not only failed to receive any recognition from the international community but were isolated and prevented from attending ASEAN summits and related minister-level meetings.
As the terrorist military council can no longer defeat the people’s resistance, they are creating a sham peace dialogue using ethnic armed organizations in order to mislead the international community, including ASEAN.
This terrorist military council (formerly Myanmar Tatmadaw) dictated and influenced peace dialogues using the 2008 Constitution; not a single genuine peace and political agreement has been achieved under this military. Again, the invitation to ethnic armed resistance organizations by the military group firmly holding the 2008 Constitution is not a genuine attempt to find a peaceful political resolution and build a Federal Democratic Union to meet the political aspirations of ethnic armed organizations. Instead, it is evident that it is a sham dialogue intended to divide and rule the resistance groups, namely the Spring revolution forces, the people and ethnic armed organizations.
Therefore, attending this sham dialogue is not only against the will of the people resisting this terrorist group, but will also lend legitimacy to this terrorist military council. In addition, it will further delay the process of building genuine peace and federal democracy, and also place further obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people most in need. Worse, sham talks will permit and encourage further crimes against humanity committed by the terrorist military group.
The military group led by the terrorist Min Aung Hlaing continues to kill their own people. He is currently facing criminal charges in the International Court of Justice for allegedly committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It is imperative to learn from Myanmar’s history that this terrorist group is not a worthy political dialogue partner for peace and to make efforts to remove them from Myanmar’s political arena entirely. Hence, we call on ethnic armed organizations – that have been consistently struggling for democracy, federalism, and peace – to avoid attending sham political and peace dialogues (either publicly or secretly) held by the terrorist military group and join with people who are fighting to totally remove the military from politics.
Note – out of a total of 567 organizations endorsed the letter, only 281 organizations have been identified for security reasons.
Signed by
Strike Column
Student Union
Civilian killed and burned during junta raid on Sagaing village
/in NewsA PDF fighter was also found dead following the attack on the Myaung Township village of Na Bet late last week
Regime forces killed a civilian and a member of a local People’s Defence Force (PDF) during a raid on a village in Sagaing Region’s Myaung Township late last week, according to resistance sources.
The raid, carried out by a military column of around 100 troops, began early Thursday morning, when Na Bet, a village located about 10km southwest of the town of Myaung, came under heavy artillery fire.
The bodies of the two victims were discovered the next day, said Nway Oo, the spokesperson for the Civil Defence and Security Organisation of Myaung (CDSOM), a coalition of local resistance groups.
“We managed to get the body of the PDF member back, but we couldn’t retrieve the body of the civilian as it was in the middle of the village. The soldiers burned it as they left,” he said.
The junta column in question was said to be stationed in neighbouring Myinmu Township. It began its attacks in Myaung Township on Wednesday, forcing residents of the area to flee, local sources reported.
According to Nway Oo, the PDF member was scouting the area when he was captured after being spotted by the soldiers.
“He tried to flee by crossing the river, but the soldiers chased him in a boat. He was shot once in the head,” said the CDSOM spokesperson.
The dead PDF member was identified as 25-year-old Htet Wai Aung. The identity of the other victim could not be confirmed because he had been burned beyond recognition, according to Nway Oo.
On Friday, after leaving Na Bet, the junta column divided into two groups—one heading south towards the Kyauk Yit police station and the other north towards the village of Let Yet Ma, according to local sources.
The CDSOM urged civilians in southern Myaung Township to leave the area amid rumours that the military is going to carry out clearance operations there.
The group said that a total of seven people have been killed in the township since the beginning of the month, including three who died after a camp for displaced civilians in the village of Zee Kyun came under heavy artillery fire on September 1.
Myanmar Now News
Junta shelling kills two children, injures several in Myanmar’s Rakhine state
/in NewsFighting between the military and the ethnic Arakan Army is intensifying in the region.
Military shelling in Myanmar’s Rakhine state over the past four days has claimed the lives of at least two children and injured several others, residents said Monday, as clashes ramp up between junta troops and ethnic insurgents following a two-year lull.
Late on Sunday evening, junta troops from the 9th Military Operations Command (MOC-9) in Kyauktaw township fired shells into Na Ga Yar village, killing 7-year-old Maung Gyi and injuring a man named Kyaw Sein, a resident told RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity.
“A shell fired by the military fell right on the house at about 11 p.m. and went through the roof,” the resident said. “That was the only one that fell on our village, but around 30 shells fell along the banks of the [nearby] Kyauktaw river.”
The boy, who is also known as Moung Ko Naing, was buried on Monday and Kyaw Sein is currently receiving medical treatment, the resident said. Some inhabitants of Na Ga Yar have fled to nearby villages, he added.
Separately, residents told RFA that a seven-year-old from Buthidaung township’s Ah Twin Hnget Thay village was killed and two residents of North Tha Bauk Chaung village were wounded on Sept. 23 when the 8th regiment of the junta’s Buthidaung Township Border Guard Force fired shells toward Tha Bauk Chaung village. Additional details of the incident were not immediately available.
The incident in Na Ga Yar came just four days after a shell fired by MOC-9 injured four members of a family in the same village, sources said.
Residents reported additional civilian casualties resulting from junta attacks since the weekend.
A man staying at the Thein San Guest House in Kyauktaw’s Ywama ward was injured by a stray bullet on Saturday, while a 21-year-old woman and her two children were injured on Monday when a shell fired by a junta naval boat exploded in Minbya township’s Khaung Laung village, sources said.
Of the shelling on Monday, residents said that the clash erupted after members of the ethnic Arakan Army (AA) intercepted two naval vessels traveling upriver from the capital Sittwe to Minbya between Khaung Laung and Laung Shay villages.
“Two Z-craft [boats] came up from Sittwe at about 9 a.m. When they approached our village, [a helicopter] arrived, hovering above. Soon afterwards, we heard the sound of fighting as the vessels approached Khaung Laung village,” said a resident of nearby Thut Pon Chaung village.
“I think the AA fired at the navy. Both vessels were hit. We heard the gunfire. The aircraft also returned fire.”
The Thut Pon Chaung resident said junta troops were firing from the river between Khaung Laung village to Minbya, and a military unit stationed at Kyein Taung Pagoda in Minbya also fired shells into the area.
Pe Than, a former lawmaker and veteran politician in Rakhine state, condemned junta troops for attacking civilians.
“What we have seen is that as the fighting throughout Rakhine state has intensified, the junta is targeting residents, regardless of whether there are any clashes nearby,” he said.
“The military is doing whatever it wants in the villages. More people are becoming displaced by fighting. It’s like the Myanmar proverb ‘burning down the barn because the mouse cannot be found.’”
He urged residents of the state to “keep their eyes and ears open at all times” as the fighting between the two sides is “likely to become even more severe.”
Growing conflict
Fighting between Myanmar’s military and the AA, which resumed in July after a two-year lull, has intensified and is spreading southward through Rakhine state, sources in the region told RFA last week.
What began as intermittent clashes two months ago in northern Rakhine’s Maungdaw township and across the border to the northeast in neighboring Chin state’s Paletwa township has since spread to the central Rakhine townships of Buthidaung, Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw, and is now expanding to Toungup township in the state’s south-central region, according to residents.
More than 10,000 residents have fled their homes in townships including Maungdaw, Rathedaung and Mrauk-U in the more than two months since the resumption of fighting.
Neither the AA nor the junta has released any news regarding the situation in Rakhine. Attempts by RFA to reach the junta’s spokesman in the state went unanswered on Monday.
The AA recently announced that it had captured the junta’s 352 Light Infantry Battalion camp on Sept. 10 and its Border Guard Station near milepost No. 40 along Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh on Aug. 31. The AA claimed that “many junta soldiers were killed” and many others were captured, along with weapons and ammunition.
On Sept. 20, Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw that the military is trying to recapture the two locations.
Junta shelling has killed three children and three adults and wounded 18 people since fighting resumed in Buthidaung, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw and Minbya townships.
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
RFA News
Child killed as military shells village during Ayeyarwady River crossing in Kachin State
/in NewsA junta column fires artillery into a village in the attempted advance, but loses more than 20 soldiers to an ambush on its boats, a resistance spokesperson says
A nine-year-old boy was killed when the Myanmar army fired heavy artillery into a village along the Ayeyarwady River last week in Kachin State’s Shwegu Township, according to a member of the resistance.
On September 22, a unit of some 100 soldiers from the junta’s Infantry Battalion (IB) 78—under the supervision of Light Infantry Division 88—attempted to cross the river in boats from the village of Kyun Taw to Moe Sit, on the opposite bank, when they came under attack.
The Kachin People’s Defence Force (KPDF) chapter from the town of Myohla, more than 20 miles northwest of Moe Sit, ambushed the column from their position in the village at around 2pm. The military forces still in Kyun Taw responded by firing artillery in the direction of the resistance.
Several of the junta’s shells hit the village of Moe Sit, killing nine-year-old Zwe Naing Moe. A Myohla KPDF spokesperson told Myanmar Now that the boy was hiding when he was hit by one of the blasts.
Four other civilians were reportedly injured in the attack, including a local teacher who lost his leg. Further information about the villagers who were wounded was not available at the time of reporting, as most of Moe Sit’s residents had fled. At least one home was also burned down.
During the one-hour battle, the resistance forces destroyed multiple boats and killed an estimated 27 soldiers, according to the Myohla KPDF spokesperson.
“[The military] fired both automatic weapons and heavy weapons as soon as they started crossing the river and we managed to sink three of their ferries. So many of them died although some jumped into the water, swam away and escaped,” he said.
Shwegu_tsp.png
Map of Shwegu Township showing the locations of Myohla town and the villages of Kyauk Ta Lone, Kyun Taw and Moe Sit along the Ayeyarwady River
The IB 78 column had left the village of Kyauk Ta Lone in western Shwegu days earlier and had since been occupying Kyun Taw.
Starting on the morning of September 23, the remaining 80 junta troops based in Kyun Taw began searching homes in the village, causing more locals in the area to flee.
The Myohla KPDF withdrew from Moe Sit due to the proximity of the Myanmar army soldiers.
“The junta force is still inside the village [of Kyun Taw]. We decided to withdraw so that more villagers would not be harmed,” the resistance force’s spokesperson said.
Local anti-junta defence forces have repeatedly attacked military vessels travelling along the Ayeyarwady River sending reinforcement troops into Kachin State.
Serious battles have also been taking place in Katha Township, located across the Sagaing Region border with Shwegu Township in Kachin State.
A resistance alliance led by the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front clashed with a junta unit from Light Infantry Battalion 309 near the township’s administrative centre on the same day as the heavy fighting along the Ayeyarwady River in Shwegu.
Myanmar Now News