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.
Recent Posts
- Open letter: Special Envoy’s conflicts of interest signal urgent need for investigation and complete end of mandate
- Myanmar children, monks among dozens killed in heavy airstrikes
- UN chief: Discussing humanitarian aid corridor from Bangladesh to Myanmar
- Rodrigo Roa Duterte makes first appearance before the ICC: confirmation of charges hearing scheduled for 23 September 2025
- Myanmar junta troops massacre 11 villagers, most too old to flee, residents say
Weekly Update on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar: Post-Coup (October 25-31) 2021
/in HR SituationHuman Rights Watch and the Associated Press released detailed reports of the torture innocent civilians in Myanmar have been subjected to. While these tactics are not new, the junta’s lawlessness is in full swing leading the joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Ko Bo Kyi to state that in many ways, the military has become ‘even more brutal.’ Torture tactics include mock executions, beatings, and electrocution. Women are targeted with physiological warfare and sexual violence and assault. A transgender activist and writer who was detained by the junta was forced to endure humiliation tactics and was sexually harassed and beaten with gun stocks. Hot water was poured all over her body.
These accounts from survivors are a terrifying glimpse into the horrors that exist within the walls of the junta’s interrogation centers. They also demand action. Many did not leave the walls of the prison they were confined to. They are tortured to death, and their families denied answers and the bodies of their loved ones.
While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) opened a three day summit without the presence of the junta, civil society organizations have urged ASEAN to take the next logical step – which is recognizing the National Unity Government as the legitimate governing body. Despite barring the junta from attending, ASEAN has still nonetheless met with coup leaders and sided with them at times of contention. Bo Hla Tint, who has been designated the NUG ambassador to ASEAN, has said that he is willing and open to have a dialogue to ‘restore democracy in Myanmar.’
Since September, the terrorist junta has scorched over sixty homes in Chin State as military operations continue to expand. In addition to burning villages, livestock have been killed and possessions looted from civilian homes. The Myanmar military has denied all accounts of arson and theft, claiming instead that it is the people who burnt down their own homes. The Chin Human Rights Organization has stated on multiple occasions that the regime’s crimes are all in violation of international law, including setting fire to at least 300 homes in the State since August.
Meanwhile, the crackdown in Chin State continues to intensify. With more than 90% of the population Christian, the regime has burned down churches and fired artillery shells to traumatize the population. As fighting broke out in Falam between the Chin National Front and the junta, villagers began to flee in anticipation of worsening outbreaks. On 29 October, as of 7:00 pm. over 100 houses, including religious buildings are reported to have burned down in Thantlang. CHRO reiterated its calls to the UN Security Council to convene an emergency meeting as junta reinforcements arrived in Falam.
KAREN STATE
Earlier this month it was reported that Myanmar army officers and soldiers located near the Salween river looted a cargo vessel carrying urgently needed materials for vulnerable populations in Karen State. Soldiers were also heard indiscriminately firing. Meanwhile, offensives are continuing against Karen civilians who are fearful of the increasing presence of soldiers in their areas.
The Myanmar junta continues to use Karen villagers as human shields, threatening to torch their homes if they attempt to flee. In Yaw Thit Village, approximately 60 soldiers from LIB 556 and 560 have established a base. The junta is also stealing civilian livestock to eat and shooting indiscriminately all day and night. Given the circumstances unfolding along the Thai-Myanmar border, the National Unity Government has appealed to Thailand for cross-border humanitarian aid and COVID-19 relief.
SHAN STATE
The junta’s assaults on fundamental freedoms continue with violent attacks on innocent civilians. A woman in Pangsai was seriously wounded when she was struck by a piece of shrapnel while conflict waged in northern Shan State. She is in critical condition. Rival armed groups are regularly fighting each other and the Myanmar junta. Two civilians in Kyaukme township were also injured when fighting broke out and artillery mortars struck a 60 year old man and his 18 year old grandson. In an attempt to forge legitimacy, the junta has forced civilians to attend pro-military rallies in eastern Shan State.
Myanmar Junta Kills 10 Civilians in Five Days: AAPP
/in NewsMyanmar’s junta atrocities are continuing with the murder of more than 10 civilians, including a Buddhist monk and National League for Democracy (NLD) supporters, over the past five days.
Regime forces have looted houses, destroyed property, bombarded civilians with artillery, burned down homes and arbitrarily killed civilians during operations against civilian resistance forces, especially in Magwe and Sagaing regions and Chin, Shan and Kayah states.
By Saturday, 1,222 people had been killed by junta forces since the February coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which records deaths and arrests.
Last Thursday, the bodies of two NLD supporters, U San Lwin, 60, and U Kyaw Htay Aung, 50, were reportedly dumped by junta forces near the NLD office in Chanayethazan Township, Mandalay.
A photo was released of two bloody bodies lying beside a road in Mandalay.
The two victims were arrested with another NLD supporter, U Moe Gyi, 50, on Wednesday night, according to the AAPP.
The police retrieved the bodies and then reportedly asked family members to retrieve the corpses, according to the media.
Many torture injuries, including knife wounds, were found on the bodies, according to the AAPP.
A 25-year-old NLD member Ko Min Min Thu, also known as Mohammad Har Ni, from East Mawtone village in Tanintharyi Region, on Wednesday was tortured to death two days after being detained. He was seized at his home by regime forces last Monday.
On Thursday night, regime forces detained a married couple, U Myo Lwin and Daw San San Lwin, after failing to find their son who has been accused of being a People’s Defense Force (PDF) member.
U Myo Lwin was reportedly tortured to death during interrogation after the couple were accused of supplying the PDF, according to the media.
The AAPP said a Buddhist monk, U Kuthala, an assistant head of the monastery in Yinshae village, Yegyi Township in Ayeyarwady Region, was shot dead by regime forces last Tuesday while returning from shopping in Ngathaingchaung near Yegyi.
A novice monk was also injured in his ear during the junta shooting, the AAPP said.
On Thursday, former political prisoner Ko Kyaw Naing Tun, who was released from prison in Magwe Region in mid-October, was reportedly tortured to death by the regime after being detained again on Wednesday.
Another three civilians were shot dead by junta forces during raids on villages in Myaung, Budalin, and Khin-U townships in Sagaing Region on Sunday and Monday.
One or two displaced villagers were shot dead by the regime forces while returning home to fetch food at a village in Demoso Township, Shan State, on Sunday.
The Demoso PDF said junta forces burned down houses and randomly attacked villages and residential areas of Demoso on Sunday and Monday.
Troops burned harvested rice in Demoso on Saturday while advancing on neighboring Pekon Township in Shan State, the PDF said.
On Friday, troops bombarded the mountaintop town of Thantlang in Chin State. More than 160 houses, including two churches, burned down in junta artillery fire.
Except for Rakhine State, regime forces nationwide are facing increasingly intense attacks by civilian resistance forces and ethnic armed forces.
Irrawaddy News
Bodies of two NLD supporters abducted by junta found dumped near party office in Mandalay
/in NewsA third man who was taken at the same time is still missing
The bloodied bodies of two National League for Democracy (NLD) supporters abducted by the military were found dumped on a roadside in Mandalay last week, while a third person who was detained with them is still missing.
San Lwin, 60, and Kyaw Htay Aung, 44, turned up dead near the NLD office in Chanayethazan Township on Friday after junta forces took them from their homes in Maha Aungmyay Township’s Thanyat Mhaw area two days earlier.
Moe Gyi, 50, was also taken from his home on the same street and his condition is unknown.
About five cars and two motorcycles arrived on the street in Thanyat Mhaw’s London ward around 10pm for the raid. “They broke into Moe Gyi’s house first, then two more vehicles arrived and arrested the remaining two,” said a local who requested anonymity.
The families of San Lwin and Kyaw Htay Aung collected their bodies from the morgue at Mandalay General Hospital, the local said, adding that it appeared as though a social services group must have picked up the bodies from the street to bring them to the morgue.
Both bodies had bruises and stab wounds, he added, citing the men’s family members. The families declined to comment when contacted by Myanmar Now.
Photos on social media showed the men’s bodies with their heads placed together lying near a pool of blood.
A source close to the men’s families told Myanmar Now that it is unclear why they were targeted.
“Their families still don’t know why they were even arrested in the first place,” said the source. “They were just regular supporters of the NLD party. It’s still not known what made them take such brutal action.”
Calls seeking comment from the No. 7 Police Station in Maha Aungmye went unanswered.
Kyaw Htay Aung was a former 100 household administrator and the owner of a mobile phone accessories shop. He was cremated at around 2pm on Friday. San Lwin was cremated the following day.
Kyaw Htay Aung left behind two young children and San Lwin left behind a teenage son.
In a similar incident late last month a 50-year-old NLD supporter named Pauk Gyi was abducted by junta forces from his home in Maha Aungmye’s Shan Wine ward at midnight. The next morning his body was found on a traffic island on Strand Road.
The junta has killed at least 1,220 civilians since the February 1 military coup, according to figures from the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners.
Myanmar Now News
US Condemns Myanmar Military’s Violence in Chin State
/in NewsWashington has condemned the Myanmar junta’s horrific use of violence in Chin State and called for urgent international action to hold the Myanmar military accountable for its brutality. The United States (US) intervention comes after regime forces shelled the Chin State town of Thantlang again last Friday, destroying over 160 houses and buildings including two churches.
On Sunday, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a press statement that such brutal actions by the military regime against people, their homes and places of worship lays bare the junta’s complete disregard for the lives and welfare of civilians.
“These abhorrent attacks underscore the urgent need for the international community to hold the Burmese [Myanmar] military accountable and take action to prevent gross violations and abuses of human rights, including preventing the transfer of arms to the military,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
At least 164 houses out of 2,000 homes in Thantlang burned down after junta artillery strikes on Friday. The fires started after the bombardment and engulfed the town until Saturday morning, as the town’s residents have largely fled and any attempt by people in surrounding villages to extinguish the fires would have been a risk to life, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO).
The majority of Thantlang’s population had already evacuated the mountain-top town due to earlier artillery strikes. Around 20 buildings burned down in late September after junta shelling, while a Christian pastor who tried to help put out the fires was killed by regime troops.
Many people in Thantlang have now lost not only their homes, but all their belongings.
Junta forces also deliberately torched houses after the artillery strikes, according to local resistance groups. The shelling is said to have started after a soldier who was looting a shop was shot dead by civilian resistance fighters.
During the latest bombardment on Friday, the Church on the Rock and the Presbyterian Church caught fire, along with a building attached to the Thantlang Baptist Church, the largest congregation in the town, CHRO said in their statement.
Save The Children also reported that their office was destroyed in the blaze. The London-based charity said in a statement that it is concerned for the safety of 20 children and their teachers in an orphanage located at the entrance of the town.
Junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun disputed the reports and accounts by locals of the military’s role in Thantlang’s razing as “groundless”. He accused local People’s Defense Forces of setting fire to the houses.
Salai Issac Khen, a former Chin State municipal minister under the ousted civilian National League for Democracy government, condemned the military’s shelling of Thantlang, saying that the regime will have to take responsibility for the horrific act.
“It is not easy to build a house in mountainous Chin State. Chin people have no reason to burn down their houses,” the former minister wrote.
Dr. Sa Sa, an ethnic Chin and the parallel National Unity Government’s Minister of International Cooperation, said he was shocked by the sheer level of brutality and the cruel disregard for humanity displayed by the junta forces.
He said his homeland has been subjected to an extreme campaign of violence and terror for standing strong in the struggle for democracy and freedom.
“Without the support and intervention of the international community, the fires lit in Chin State by the murderous military regime will engulf the entire nation,” Dr. Sa Sa said in a urgent appeal letter.
The minister called on the international community to take immediate and decisive action to cut off the junta’s access to money, financial services, fuel, weapons and ammunition and, most all, international legitimacy.
Irrawaddy News
Soldiers abduct 19 villagers in southern Shan ‘to use as human shields’
/in NewsThe residents from Kathea village were blindfolded and led away on Thursday
Junta soldiers abducted 19 people from a village in southern Shan State last week, blindfolding them before leading them away to be used as human shields, local resistance fighters said.
The residents were taken from the village of Kathea on Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson for the Pekhon chapter of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) told Myanmar Now.
Many of Kathea’s 450 residents fled the village two days earlier after junta shells exploded at a drug rehabilitation clinic where people were sheltering during a clash between the military and a coalition of fighters from the PDF and the Karenni National Defence Force (KNDF).
More than 300 Kathea villagers are now taking shelter to the west in Kawnghwet village and the surrounding area and are in need of aid.
Those who were taken on Thursday included elderly people who had stayed behind to take care of the village. Soldiers took eight villagers at around 3pm and then arrived a few hours later to take the other 11, the Pekhon PDF spokesperson said.
“We still do not know where they were taken,” he said. “The military is also breaking into houses in the village.” His group is trying to find out the identities of all the people who were taken, he added.
One woman from Kathea told Myanmar Now that her 48-year-old uncle and 35-year-old cousin were among those taken and that she fears for their lives.
“I think the military confiscated their phones as well,” she said. “I could call before but lost contact once they were taken to be used as human shields.”
Also on Thursday, soldiers abducted a man from the town of Pekhon, about three miles from Kathea. Most residents have fled the town but Myint Kyaw, 60, stayed behind to look after his milling business and his wife who had just given birth.
“They put a bag on his head when they took him. Locals said that they also tied his hands behind his back,” the Pekhon PDF spokesperson said. Soldiers also stole bags of rice, a car and 5m kyat from Myint Kyaw, he added.
Military convoys have been patrolling Pekhon and soldiers have been breaking into people’s houses and stealing things, a local from the town said.
Myanmar Now News
More than 160 homes burn down in junta shelling of Chin State town
/in NewsTwo of Thantlang’s churches also caught fire, and some 20 children are feared to be trapped in an orphanage in the besieged town
Amid an escalation of both armed resistance to military rule and reprisals from the junta forces, Myanmar army troops shelled the largely deserted western Chin State town of Thantlang on Friday, causing fires that destroyed more than 160 of the town’s 2,000 homes.
The attack came after a junta soldier was shot dead at 9:30am by the Chinland Defence Force (CDF)—which has been monitoring the situation in Thantlang—after members of the local resistance group said they saw him looting a shop.
In retaliation for the killing, the junta’s armed forces occupying the area shot at least 10 rounds of artillery into the town, which started fires upon exploding. Within an hour, several troops had arrived at the location at which the soldier was killed and also began torching houses “for no reason,” a CDF spokesperson said.
“They walked into the town at around 10:30am and torched the houses at random,” the spokesperson from the CDF’s Thantlang chapter told Myanmar Now.
By 5pm, at least 40 houses had burnt down, with the fires continuing to burn throughout the night, he said.
A man who lives near Thantlang told Myanmar Now that there was “still smoke coming out” of the town on Friday evening.
By 9am Saturday morning, the fire had died down but homes were still smoldering, according to the Zalen news outlet.
The Thantlang CDF took note of the estimated 160 houses that were destroyed and at the time of reporting were still notifying the homeowners, the group’s spokesperson said.
The Church on the Rock, the Presbyterian church, and a building attached to the Thantlang Baptist Church—the town’s largest congregation—also caught fire in the shelling, the Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO) said in a statement on Friday night.
International non-profit organisation Save the Children also reported that their local office in Thantlang was destroyed in the fire.
Nearly all of Thantlang’s 8,000 residents fled following military assaults that destroyed 18 homes and a government building in September. This too was seen as a retaliation against the public and the resistance after an attack by the CDF and the Chin National Army on a junta base reportedly killed some 30 soldiers.
Thousands of the civilians displaced from Thantlang have been taking shelter in villages along the India-Myanmar border, with others crossing into India’s Mizoram State.
At least three people, including two elderly women, were known to have stayed behind in Thantlang after others had fled. Myanmar Now was unable to contact them on Friday after the military shelling.
In their Friday statement, CHRO reported that more than 20 children and their teachers had stayed behind in an orphanage located at the entrance to Thantlang and remained trapped.
“The extensive destruction of civilian property, carried out wantonly and not justified by any military necessity, represent war crimes and grave breaches of international humanitarian law,” CHRO’s Salai Za Uk Ling said in the statement. .
Salai Issac Khen, a former municipal minister of Chin State under the National League for Democracy administration ousted in Myanmar’s February 1 coup, condemned the shelling on Friday in a Facebook post blaming the military for the destruction after rumours circulated that the residents of Thantlang were somehow responsible for the blaze.
“It is not easy to build a house in the Chin hills. The Chin people do not have any reason to torch their own homes,” he wrote.
On Sunday, junta mouthpiece the Global New Light of Myanmar accused the PDF burning the homes in Thantlang and committing “terrorist acts.” Military council spokesperson Gen Zaw Min Tun also said in a statement on Sunday that the local PDF—encouraged by the shadow National Unity Government and living “under the cover of [the] people”—had started the fire and that the military was unable to extinguish it.
In September 2017, following a scorched earth military campaign against the Rohingya population of Rakhine State—south of Chin State—the Myanmar army and government infamously accused the fleeing Rohingya of burning down their own homes. The claim was widely dismissed by the refugees themselves, human rights groups and the international community, and later submitted to a UN court as evidence of genocide.
“The military council will go down in history as responsible for this fire in Thantlang today,” Salai Issac Khen wrote, and urged all ethnic Chin members of the military council to “immediately resign.”
Around 200 troops from the military’s Light Infantry Division 11 and Light Infantry Battalion 269 based in the Chin State capital of Hakha have been stationed on a hill overlooking Thantlang, according to the CDF.
“We will take our town back,” the Thantlang CDF spokesperson said.
The Myanmar military deployed thousands of troops to northwestern Myanmar, including Chin State and Sagaing and Magway regions, earlier this month. The move appears to be preparation for a concerted push to crush the resistance movement that has inflicted heavy casualties on the junta’s army.
Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun said on Friday in an address to the Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly’s 76th session that “decisive timely action” by the UN on the country’s situation was “well overdue,” and highlighted the most recent military assault on Thantlang as evidence of the deteriorating conditions in Myanmar.
“All people, I repeat all people in Myanmar, are suffering every day, every hour, every minute from atrocities, crimes against humanity committed by the military and some even brutally killed,” Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun said.
“Your serious attention to basic rights of all people and your action to prevent all people from such atrocities is seriously needed,” he said.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on October 31 to include reference to the junta’s report and their spokesperson’s statement on the fire.
Myanmar Now News