Six civilians used as human shields found dead near Myaing village

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The victims were among at least 40 villagers captured by junta soldiers advancing through the area in recent weeks

The bodies of six civilians who were captured by regime forces earlier this month were discovered near a village in Magway Region’s Myaing Township last week.

The victims, who were among 40 villagers taken hostage and used as human shields by soldiers who began advancing through the area on May 13, were found last Thursday, according to the commander of a local People’s Defence Force (PDF) battalion.

All six bodies were found near each other on the edge of a forest a short distance north of the village of Kyauk Khwet, in southern Myaing Township, Lt Let Ya of the Myaing PDF told Myanmar Now.

“Six of the villagers who were being held as hostages are dead. The junta troop captured the elderly and others who could not run,” he said.

“We often attack troops with explosives, so that’s why they took the villagers prisoner,” he added.

Each of the dead villagers showed signs of physical abuse, including broken bones, and all had been shot at close range, according to Let Ya.

“There were gunshot wounds to their ears, and some had been shot in the mouth,” he said.

The victims, who were all men between the ages of 25 and 50, are believed to be from the villages of Than Chaung, Kyauk Khwet, Bawton and Baunt Bin, all located along the border between Myaing and Pauk townships.

Only one victim, 25-year-old Kyauk Khwet resident Kyaw Ye, could be positively identified by name.

He was found lying face up with bullet wounds to the head and thigh, according to Let Ya. He also had a lit cigarette held lightly between his lips, the PDF commander added.

A military column of around 170 regime troops has been been moving through southern Myaing Township since the middle of the month. According to residents, thousands have fled their homes to avoid capture by the junta forces. 

On May 14 and 15, soldiers also fired on the villages of Letyatma and Padauk Kan, in the northern part of the township, with heavy artillery and light weapons. Hundreds of homes were set on fire, and at least three villagers were shot dead in the raids, local sources reported.

Myanmar’s junta routinely denies targeting civilians in its offensives against anti-regime resistance forces, despite numerous reports of such attacks.

As in other conflict areas, the regime has severed most telephone and internet connections to much of Myaing Township.

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Lawyer facing life sentence on terror charges sent to Obo Prison

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Ywet Nu Aung was being held inside one of Myanmar’s most notorious interrogation centres prior to her transfer to the prison

A lawyer who was charged last month under Myanmar’s anti-terror law for allegedly financing an armed resistance group was transferred to Mandalay’s Obo Prison on Thursday.

Ywet Nu Aung, a prominent lawyer who has represented a number of high-profile clients, had been held at the Mandalay Palace interrogation centre since her arrest on April 27.

Despite that facility’s reputation for mistreatment of prisoners, she appeared to be in good physical condition, a source close to the lawyer told Myanmar Now.

“She’s in good health, but she lost some weight,” said the source.

Ywet Nu Aung was arrested last month following a hearing at Obo Prison for Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, the ousted chief minister of Mandalay Region and vice-chair of the deposed ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

She was later charged under Section 50j of the Counter-Terrorism Law, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The charge stems from claims made by Myanmar’s regime that a treasurer for a Mandalay-based armed resistance group had confessed to receiving money from Ywet Nu Aung.

The source close to the lawyer said that she would conduct her own defence. 

“She won’t be acquiring another lawyer. She said she would represent herself,” said the source.

Ywet Nu Aung, 43, is a central executive committee member of the Mandalay Region branch of the NLD. In addition to defending Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, she has also represented Win Mya Mya, the vice chair of the Mandalay Region NLD party.

She was also the lawyer for “Victoria,” a preschool student who was sexually assaulted in Naypyitaw in 2019, in a case that sparked national outrage. 

Another client was Swe Win, the editor-in-chief of Myanmar Now, in a defamation case laid against him by Mandalay-based ultranationalists. Ywet Nu Aung faced threats from the same ultranationalists for her involvement in the case.

According to prison sources, a hearing was also held for Ywet Nu Aung on Thursday. Details were not available at the time of reporting.

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Elderly man killed in northwestern Myanmar after junta artillery shell hits his home

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Unable to flee with the other residents, the 70-year-old man was left behind as a military convoy assaulted villages along a road through Sagaing’s Khin-U Township

A 70-year-old man was killed on Wednesday after the military fired both heavy and light weapons into his village in Sagaing Region’s Khin-U Township. 

Kun Thee had been hiding in his house in Kan Thit village when it was hit by an artillery shell at around 7pm, another resident of the community said. 

The rest of the locals already fled as a seven-vehicle junta convoy travelling through Khin-U—en route from Shwebo to Ye-U—shot at and raided a number of homes along the road. Residents of some 12 villages, including Kan Thit, were displaced by the assaults.

“The old man couldn’t run, so he stayed behind. He was arrested once before, too,” the Kan Thit villager said, adding that Kun Thee’s son had also been previously arrested and was reportedly in prison at the time of the attack. 

Anti-junta defence forces used improvised explosive devices to intercept the military vehicles at a curve in the road near Kan Thit, locals said, and noted that accompanying the convoy was a new junta-appointed local administrator. 

The Khin-U People’s Defence Force (PDF) released a statement on Wednesday reporting that they and their allies were able to safely withdraw from the battle that followed, and warned residents of Depayin, Khin-U, Taze and Ye-U townships that a major Myanmar army assault on the area could be forthcoming. 

Junta forces have been raiding villages in Khin-U throughout May, and frequently clashed with resistance groups. After such battles, military columns are known to bombard villages in the surrounding area with both heavy and light weapons. 

On May 19, five civilians were killed and 13 more were injured after an artillery shell fired by the military landed on a crowd of internally displaced persons near Tar Taing village in Khin-U Township. They had gathered on the eastern shores of the Muu River and were reportedly watching to see if their village on the opposite side bank—Pauk Thar—would be targeted in arson attacks by junta troops as fighting occurred one mile away in Depayin Township.

According to the monitoring group Data for Myanmar, as of May 1, a total of 11,417 homes had been destroyed in military attacks nationwide, of which some 972 were in Khin-U Township. 

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Murders in Yangon and Mandalay linked to Thwe Thout

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Anti-regime forces who killed alleged members of the group last week say they had a hit list of more than 150 intended victims

Attacks targeting supporters of Myanmar’s ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), left at least four people dead in Yangon and Mandalay late last week.

On Thursday, two unidentified gunmen entered a fabric store in Yangon’s Thaketa Township and shot three people at close range. Honey Oo, a 22-year-old physics student, died instantly after being shot twice in the head, sources said.

Her uncle, 40-year-old Ye Naing Aung, later reportedly died of his injuries at a military hospital, while the condition of her mother—who sources did not identify by name—could not be confirmed.

A member of a social welfare group in Thaketa Township told Myanmar Now that the victims were all known to be NLD supporters.

Min Thurein, the information officer for the Eastern Yangon University Student Union, confirmed Honey Oo’s death. He also indicated that Ye Naing Aung appeared to be the primary target of the attack.

“They started shooting at Ye Naing Aung when he came out. When he began to flee in a panic, they proceeded to shoot Honey Oo and her mother,” he said.

Sources also noted that the victims were Muslims and that Ye Naing Aung took part in protests against last year’s coup, which saw the ouster of the country’s elected NLD government.

While no group took responsibility for the attack, it came less than a month after a new pro-junta group calling itself Thwe Thout launched “Operation Red,” a campaign intended to instil terror in opponents of the regime.

Since then, at least 19 murders and abductions have been attributed to the group.

More than half of the victims so far have been in Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, where two more people were killed on Friday.

Mya Mya and her daughter, Khin San Aye, were found dead in their home in Mandalay’s Chanayethazan Township after being murdered and robbed of jewellery, a motorcycle, and more than 3m kyat ($1,600) in cash, according to sources.

A local resident who did not want to be identified said that Mya Mya, who was in her 60s, and her daughter both had their hands tied behind their backs and had been stabbed repeatedly.

They also had lanyards bearing the Thwe Thout logo around their necks, the source said.

In addition to leaving its calling card, the group also posted a message on its Telegram channel justifying the brutal attack, accusing Mya Mya of funding the anti-junta Myaing People’s Defence Force on a monthly basis.

While this claim could not be confirmed, local residents said that Mya Mya and Khin San Aye were vocal supporters of the NLD.
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The body of an alleged Thwe Thout member lies face down on the ground after being killed in an attack by anti-regime forces on May 19 (Supplied)

The body of an alleged Thwe Thout member lies face down on the ground after being killed in an attack by anti-regime forces on May 19 (Supplied)

Meanwhile, on Thursday anti-regime forces in Mandalay Region’s Nyaung-U Township said they attacked a group of Thwe Thout members suspected of plotting more murders.

The assault, which took place in Auk Nyint, a village about 20km northeast of the town of Nyaung-U, targeted the village’s junta-appointed administrator San Shwe and two members of Thwe Thout from Mandalay, as well as other alleged co-conspirators.

Three members of the group were killed and one was injured, according to a statement released on Friday by an alliance of guerrilla groups that took part in the attack.

More than 300 residents of the village were forced to flee after junta troops arrived a few hours later, the resistance forces said.

The statement also claimed that the alleged Thwe Thout members had a list of more than 150 names of individuals who had been singled out for assassination.

The anti-regime groups said they would not release the list, but had informed those named as potential targets. 

Myanmar Now News

More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

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About 90 people, including women and children, were aboard the boat heading to Malaysia

More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and rescue workers said.

The passengers, refugees from deadly crackdowns on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar troops that have driven nearly a million people into camps in Rakhine and neighboring Bangladesh, had paid U.S. $1,500-2,500 each to traffickers to take them to Malaysia, where they hoped to find employment, some of the Rohingya survivors told RFA.

More than 50 other passengers remain missing, and more than 20 survivors, mostly men, have been detained by local authorities at the Shwe Thaung Yan township police station in Pathein district of Ayeyarwady region, the sources said.

“Ninety people were said to be on the boat, 23 were arrested, and 14 dead bodies have been found so far, most of them children around 11 or 12 years of age,” said a Shwe Thaung Yan resident who declined to be named for safety reasons.

RFA has not been able to independently confirm the figures.

Seven bodies were recovered after they washed ashore Sunday near the popular Shwe Thaung Yan beach, local rescue workers said. Six others were found earlier in the afternoon in the Wetlet area, and another body washed up on the shore in Shwe Thaung Yan’s ward No. 1.

The bodies were not found on the resort side of the beach, one local said.

One rescue worker said the bodies were buried Sunday night with the help of Muslim religious leaders from Pathein.

“The bodies were buried yesterday,” he said. “The leaders of their religious group came and buried them. We found another dead body in Shwe Thaung Yan No. 1 ward at about 5.30 p.m. The Muslim leaders buried it too. They came from Pathein.”

The passengers were trying to reach Malaysia from displacement camps in Rakhine’s Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, locals said.

The ward administrator said that the traffickers and some people about 20 years of age were found alive.

“The single body found in our ward was that of a 10-year-old girl,” he said.

He speculated that the boat may have been sunk in a cyclone.

“The sea around here is very scary. Storms come unannounced sometimes,” he said.

Traffickers apprehended

Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling junta, said that the boat capsized about five nautical miles west of Thapyay Hmaw Island near Shwe Thaung Yan.

“A search was carried out and found 14 Bengalis dead. The rest will be deported as usual,” he said.

Authorities captured five “suspects” in Shwe Thaung Yan’s Thae Gone village at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Zaw Min Tun said.

“We checked them and found them to be human traffickers. They were bringing these Bengalis from [Rakhine’s] Rathedaung [township] by boat to go to Yangon and then to Malaysia,” he said, using a derogatory term for Rohingya, who in Myanmar are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

In addition to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees in Rakhine, more than 740,000 Rohingya have been sheltering since a 2017 crackdown at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where they are fenced in and not allowed to work outside their confines.

Rohingya in the camps and those still in western Myanmar pay traffickers to transport them to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to find work and a better life. Groups of Rohingya have also packed into boats and sailed off in search of asylum in other countries, often only to be denied entry.

Tin Hlaing from the Rohingya displacement camp in Thetkeibyin village, Sittwe township, said many have tried to leave Myanmar with the help of traffickers, which in most cases has not ended well.

“They left because there are a lot of difficulties in the refugee camps here,” he said. “About 90% of them had financial problems. Jobs are scarce. In some cases, children have grown up. … That’s why they leave.”

The Rohingya often ignore warnings of camp administrators about the risks of paying traffickers to transport them, Tin Hlaing said.

“About 35 out of 100 people make it,” he said. “They have to pay a lot of money to the traffickers and now they are losing their lives.”

“The latest tragedy shows once again the sense of desperation being felt by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region,” Indrika Ratwatte, director of the regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a statement issued Monday. “It is shocking to see increasing numbers of children, women and men embarking on these dangerous journeys and eventually losing their lives.”

At least 1,000 Rohingya have left internal displacement camps in Rakhine’s Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe township s every year in an effort to eke out a living elsewhere. They usually must pay traffickers 3 million-5 million kyats (U.S. $1,600-2,700) per person to be smuggled.

Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Rohingya Liberation Coalition, said Rohingya hoping for a better future in Malaysia have been repeatedly deceived by traffickers

“People are not allowed to travel, [and] their working rights are restricted, so they try to flee, thinking that if they go to Malaysia, they will find a brighter future,” he said.

RFA could not reach Maung Maung Than, social affairs minister of Ayeyarwady region, for comment.

Myanmar police arrested 41 Rohingya in Shwe Taung Yan’s Nwe Nyo Chaung village on March 22 after their boat broke down and was stranded on the beach.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Junta armed forces target villages along Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar arson campaign

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Raids lead to the widespread destruction of communities, including their religious centres, from Katha to Myaung

The Myanmar army set fire to multiple villages along stretches of the Irrawaddy River running through Sagaing Region in recent days, destroying hundreds of homes and buildings of religious and historic significance. 

A military operation that started along the eastern shore of the Irrawaddy River on May 16 in Katha and Htigyaing escalated within three days to a May 19 clash with resistance forces near the village of Thapyay Thar in Katha, according to local sources. 

Immediately following the battle, the junta troops in the area proceeded to torch Thapyay Thar—the extent of damage to which was not known—as well as the neighbouring village of Inn, where a mosque was demolished. 
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Houses burn in Inn village in Katha Township on May 19 (Supplied)

Houses burn in Inn village in Katha Township on May 19 (Supplied)

“There’s nothing left of the mosque. They even destroyed the house of the imam’s family in the mosque compound,” an Inn resident told Myanmar Now.  

That afternoon, the military fired a 60mm artillery shell west from Inn village which landed one mile away on a monastery in Pay Lan Kone, according to an officer from the People’s Defence Force (PDF) chapter from Takaung. The township is also located on the Irrawaddy’s eastern shore but in Mandalay Region, and its PDF has been fighting the junta in the area alongside guerrilla forces from Katha and Htigyaing. 

“The shell fell through the roof, onto the floor, and then detonated,” the PDF officer said of the artillery that hit the Pay Lan Kone monastery’s dining hall. 

Seven novices aged 12 and under were injured when the shell exploded, and the mother of one of the young monks was also killed, he told Myanmar Now.

“It fell right on the table where the mother and her novice son were sitting, and they both suffered injuries to their legs,” the PDF officer explained. “We were able to save the young novice but his mother bled to death on her way to the hospital, about one hour after the shell exploded.”
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A novice injured in an artillery explosion at a monastery in Katha Township is seen undergoing emergency treatment on May 19 (Supplied)

A novice injured in an artillery explosion at a monastery in Katha Township is seen undergoing emergency treatment on May 19 (Supplied)

The injured boys were taken to the Shwegu Township hospital in Kachin State, more than 30 miles away. 

Over the weekend, another junta column of around 100 troops overran Min Tan, a village in Sagaing’s southern Myaung Township, also on the banks of the Irrawaddy River. The soldiers reportedly set fire to 100 of the community’s 400 homes and several buildings of cultural and religious significance.  

The military unit arrived late Saturday afternoon and until midnight systematically torched houses, pagodas, and at least three community halls, including one made from teak and dating back to the 1940s, multiple locals told Myanmar Now. 

“We tried to get close to the village to put out the fires but they shot at anything that was moving,” a resident said, adding that three other villagers who had been trapped in Min Tan had managed to escape safely. 
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Map of Min Tan village in Myaung Township and Inn and Thapyay Thar villages in Katha Township (Myanmar Now)

Map of Min Tan village in Myaung Township and Inn and Thapyay Thar villages in Katha Township (Myanmar Now)

Citing their eyewitness accounts, he told Myanmar Now that the soldiers had been deliberate in perpetrating the arson, and appeared to “take their time” in ensuring the buildings would burn. 

A member of the Myaung PDF questioned why Min Tan had been targeted, noting that there had been no clashes around the village.  

“It was not this bad in other villages, because the villagers were able to put out the fire as soon as the soldiers left,” the resistance fighter said, adding that the troops stayed until Sunday morning. “We couldn’t do the same as they didn’t leave for a long time. The defence forces were not even able to focus on fighting back as we had to deal with the fire first.” 

He also described the arson as systematic, and said that the junta troops stole livestock and food from Min Tan during the attack. 

The column went on to carry out a similar assault on the neighbouring village of Anyun, but the damage to the community was not yet confirmed at the time of reporting. The junta has also cut off internet access to the township. 

Recent military raids on southern Myaung villages began on May 17, and have caused the destruction of more than 200 homes in some seven communities, according to the Civilians’ Defence and Security Organisation of Myaung (CDSOM).

They also extended into Yesagyo, where more than 140 homes were burned by junta forces, locals said. 

“It’s become apparent that the military is preparing for a war. This column was fully equipped with weapons that the previous ones did not have. They even had [phone] signal jammers,” CDSOM spokesperson Nway Oo told Myanmar Now. 

According to a May 1 report published by Data for Myanmar, more than 10,000 homes have been destroyed by the military since the February 2021 coup nationwide; half were in Sagaing. 

The military council has repeatedly denied responsibility for such attacks, instead blaming resistance forces for the arson. 

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