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
- Junta targeting rebel-held areas in northern Myanmar with airstrikes and artillery
- Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 8 to 14, 2024)
- Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum 2024
- Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 1 to 7, 2024)
- Red Cross chief calls for greater aid access after visit to Myanmar
Woman killed by artillery shell after ambush on junta forces in Kani
/in NewsAn elderly woman was killed and two others were injured after junta troops opened fire on Kani, Sagaing Region, with light and heavy weapons on Monday, according to local sources.
The incident occurred soon after resistance forces carried out an ambush in the town’s Ward 3 that left several police officers dead, the sources said.
The deceased victim, who was in her 60s, and another woman were working outside when an artillery shell exploded nearby, a local man told Myanmar Now. The third victim was a 12-year-old boy, he added.
“I heard a boy was hit by shrapnel at his school. There was fighting outside of town and the women were in their fields when they were hit,” he said.
It’s believed that the shells were fired from an army outpost on the Shwe See Khone Pagoda Hill, which is located west of the town’s police station and also near a school, a hospital, and several government buildings.
The shooting began shortly after around 20 police and soldiers were ambushed while patrolling near the Gyo Pin Tha Pagoda in Ward 3 on Monday morning.
According to a statement later released by Battalion 30 of the Yinmarbin District People’s Defence Force (PDF), which claimed responsibility for the attack, a G3-type gun, ammunition, and 200,000 kyat in cash were also seized from the junta troops.
The junta’s information officers did not respond to requests for comment on the ambush and subsequent shelling, and the regime has yet to release a statement.
According to locals, there are at least 100 soldiers stationed in Kani, which is also occupied by a large number of members of the military-backed Pyu Saw Htee militia.
Last week, resistance forces raided a Pyu Saw Htee base near the village of Kan Zee in Chaung-U Township, which is located southeast of Kani on the opposite side of the Chindwin River.
Twelve people were detained in that raid, which was carried out on June 13, according to a Monywa District PDF Battalion 5 officer.
“There were no junta personnel at the base when we raided it, only a few Pyu Saw Htee members and their dependents. We also seized some items that they looted from the public,” said the officer.
All 12 of the detainees—who included eight women and two boys, aged 2 and 10—were later transferred to the local anti-junta administration team, he added.
Soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee members based in Kan Zee have been accused of terrorising residents of neighbouring villages by firing at them at night with light and heavy weapons.
Myanmar Now News
On World Refugee Day, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland Calls for an Immediate End to the Targeting of Civilians by the Military Junta
/in Member statements, Resources20 June, 2023
On World Refugee Day, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) condemns the military junta’s ongoing violence perpetrated against innocent civilians in Southeastern Burma. Since the attempted coup on 1 February, the Burma Army has escalated its combat operations in HURFOM-targeted documentation areas of southern Karen State, Mon State and the Tanintharyi Region, resulting in a wave of internally displaced people and conflict-affected refugees. Their presence and indiscriminate attacks have made it increasingly challenging for them to access food, according to field reports from the HURFOM mobile documentation team.
The number of displaced individuals fleeing their homes in Thaton District, Mon State, Kawkareik District, Karen State, and at least five townships in the Tanintharyi region has rapidly increased in recent months. Meanwhile, the ongoing violence by the junta has caused a profoundly concerning humanitarian crisis across southeast Burma.
At least 480,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the region. Between 800 and 1,200 are affiliated with different rights-based groups, including the Civil Disobedience Movement. With no place to call home, they have sought temporary shelter in areas controlled by Ethic Revolution Groups, including Brigade 6 of the Karen National Union and resettlement sites under the New Mon State Party. Some have sought refuge along the Thai-Burma border and face increasing security threats and a lack of protection amid the escalating armed conflict.
Internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees face many challenges. They live in fear and anxiety, not knowing when the next civilian-targeted attack by the Burma Army will take place. More than 400 armed clashes have broken out between the junta forces and the Karen National Liberation Army-led joint armed resistance forces since the failed coup. The junta has increasingly used aerial attacks and artillery weapons, targeting the rural villages where IDPs are sheltering in bunkers or displacement camps. Even in some mixed-controlled areas between the NMSP and KNU, such as the western part of Brigade 6, that shares the border with the eastern Mon State, have experienced unexpected airstrikes.
Between May 7 to 9, although there was no armed conflict in the area on those days, the military junta deployed airstrikes to bomb six villages. The targets were Karen and Mon ethnic villagers and those affiliated with the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) sheltering alongside locals in eastern Ye Township, Mon State. Due to this sudden aerial attack, at least three people died, and eight were seriously injured. The assault led an estimated seven-hundred villagers to flee their homes.
Along the Thai – Burma border, the situation has not improved. Many arriving on Thai soil urgently need medical attention or seek asylum in a third country. Those needing safety and protection from violence in Burma often do not have the required documents for travelling or staying in Thailand. The previous Thai government failed to condemn the coup or the junta’s violence. Community-based organizations have worked to close gaps in providing shelter, food, and water. However, many challenges remain.
Cross-border aid is vital to ensure that those suffering from the daily horrors of war can have their basic needs met with dignity. Therefore, HURFOM calls upon international donors, government bodies, policymakers, and UN agencies to act with clear, coordinated action and compassion by providing humanitarian assistance through cross-border channels. Aid distributed through urban routes in Burma, such as Yangon, is very high-risk. The junta has intercepted aid repeatedly, and the likelihood that these aid convoys will reach those in need is often unsuccessful. Cross-border support is the most effective, trusted, and reliable as border-based organizations have been doing so for decades.
HURFOM also calls upon neighbouring countries like Thailand and India to open their borders to those fleeing persecution in Burma, grant them food and protection, and promote accessible pathways so first responders can reach those in need.
The international community must support ethnic health organizations and their respective departments. This includes the Backpack Health Worker Team in Karenni State, Karen State, Mon State, and the Tanintharyi region, who have provided life-saving services for over three decades in each representative area for the refugees and IDPs.
And for ASEAN – as a collective civil society community, HURFOM has continued our calls to the current Chairperson, and the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre(, the ASEAN arm of humanitarian aid, to explain the failure to deliver humanitarian assistance inside the country. Our key message is that any help facilitated through the AHA-Center, will not be able to effectively provide material or monetary aid as needed, especially with the support going through the junta. The AHA Center must revert its assistance through the cooperation and involvement of ethnic resistance organizations, service providers and NUG affiliates on the ground. Doing so otherwise risks further weaponization of humanitarian aid amidst their campaign of terror.
We want to encourage the international community and UN agencies to keep supporting these conflict-affected communities, ensure their fair treatment under international humanitarian law, and enable them to access urgent assistance such as through UNHCR.
As a human rights organization and documentation team, HURFOM remains committed to documenting human rights violations and advocating for international action in Burma. We believe in the fight to secure the rights of internally displaced people and refugees on the international stage to continue living with hope, which aligns with this year’s theme: “Hope Away from Home.”
Media Contact
Nai Aue Mon, HURFOM Program Director
Email: auemon@gmail.com
Signal: +66 86 167 9741
HURFOM was founded by exiled pro-democracy students from the 1988 uprisings, recent activists and Mon community leaders and youth. Its primary objective is restoring democracy, human rights and genuine peace in Burma. HURFOM is a non-profit organization, and all its members are volunteers with a shared vision for peace in the country.
OPEN LETTER: DON PRAMUDWINAI .. “DON’T INTERFERE” “DO NOT ESCALATE VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY”
/in Member statements, Press Releases and StatementsJune 18, 2023
We, representatives of Myanmar civil society organizations, strongly condemn the secretive meeting which includes the illegal Myanmar military junta organized by the outgoing Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai of the caretaker Government of Thailand on Sunday 18 June 2023. We demand the caretaker government cancels the meeting immediately.
This is a complete affront to the people of Myanmar who have sacrificed their lives to resist the Myanmar military’s attempt to seize power through years-long terror campaign against the whole nation. The military junta has never been a legitimate government of Myanmar, nor has it acquired effective control over the country’s territories.
This secretive initiative of the outgoing Thai Foreign Minister is in blatant contradiction with the ASEAN consensus on non-invitation of representatives of the military junta in high-level meetings. We are outraged that the Foreign Minister Don stated in his invitation to ASEAN Member States that ASEAN should “fully re-engage Myanmar at the leaders’ level”. This decision was never agreed upon by ASEAN Member States, nor did the Indonesian Government, the incumbent Chair of ASEAN, initiate this meeting. In organizing this meeting, the caretaker Government of Thailand is acting without the mandate and any consultation with the ASEAN Chair. As a member state of ASEAN, Thailand must not deviate from the bloc’s agreement, and must halt this meeting at once.
The caretaker Thai Government’s unilateral move further goes against the United Nations Security Council resolution 2669 on 21 December 2021.
By trying to “fully re-engage” the illegal military junta, representatives of ASEAN Member States will stand in contradiction with the will of the people of Myanmar for the end of military tyranny and for a federal democratic Myanmar. Participation in this secretive meeting, and the failure to cut all ties with the illegal military junta would only be “part of the initial steps” of another failed peace process. Rather, this step sends the signal to the military junta that ASEAN will recognize it despite its commission on heinous crimes. This will only further embolden the military junta to continue its crimes and atrocities, to burn villages, to displace civilian population from their homes and land, to weaponize humanitarian aid and to try to impose its tyrannical rule against the will of the people.
We condemn the secretive initiative of Don Pramudwinai in strongest terms. We demand the caretaker Thai Government cancels this meeting immediately.
We call upon invited states to not attend the meeting, as this meeting will only fuel more violence in our country and undermine other genuine attempts by the international community to address the worsening crisis in Myanmar.
For further information, please contact:
Signed by 316 organizations including 235 organization who have chosen not to disclose their name;
Download open letter in English | Burmese
Human Rights Situation weekly update (June 8 to 14, 2023)
/in HR Situation, NewsHuman Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from June 8 to 14, 2023
Military Junta troops arrested over 100 local civilians from Thayetchaung Township, Tanintharyi Region, Mabein Township, Shan State and Sataung from Sagaing Region and used them as human shields from June 8th to 14th. Junta soldiers raped and killed 2 women from Mobye Township, Shan State and one woman from Ledo, Kayin State. The Military’s Head of the Prison tortured and investigated over 80 political prisoners from Myingyan Prison, Mandalay Region, moreover did not allow the permission of medical treatment and blocked the family visit for 3 months.
Military Junta troops occupied 5 civilian houses and a rice mill within a week. Military Junta threatened in the announcement on June 12th that if the PDFs are arrested they will seal the house where the PDF rented. Military Junta soldiers are also raiding civilian places and still committing that they are burning civilian buildings, arresting, torturing and killing.
Infogram
Junta cracks down on residents of Myanmar’s Kale township
/in NewsTroops arrested 5 people over 2 weeks in the Sagaing region town.
A junta slipknot is tightening in Sagaing region’s Kale township, as troops guard every intersection, conducting door-to-door searches and arresting people suspected of being involved in pro-democracy politics, locals told RFA Burmese Wednesday.
Five people were arrested between June 1 and June 14, said residents who didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals.
At night troops go from home to home, checking household registration lists, they said. They also stop motorcycles and question riders and passengers.
As a result of the searches they arrested Pau Suan Khual, Su Su Win, Thiri Lin, Mary San and Naing Htwe.
“The junta council troops conduct casual checks in Kale city every day, targeting young people who are on motorbikes and checking their phones,” said a Kale resident who declined to be named.
“People are arrested if they are suspected of being involved in politics.”
The five people, believed to be in their twenties, were taken to the Military Regional Command Headquarters interrogation center in Kale township.
Residents said police and soldiers also threaten passers-by and demand money from them.
RFA called Sagaing region junta spokesperson Aye Hlaing Wednesday but nobody answered.
One man died during interrogation after being arrested on May 19.
Salai Ram Lian Pan, 29, was detained at a junta checkpoint as he tried to ride his motorbike across the township.
On June 7, junta authorities told the family to pick up his dead body.
The National League for Democracy, a party ostensibly dissolved by the government this year even though it won a landslide victory in elections before the Feb. 2021 coup, said Tuesday that 3,818 civilians, including 93 NLD members have been killed since the military takeover.
RFA News
Three weeks of fighting in eastern Myanmar leaves nearly 3 dozen civilians dead
/in NewsA long-simmering conflict has worsened since the 2021 coup.
Three weeks of fierce fighting between junta troops and ethnic Karenni forces in eastern Myanmar has killed at least 35 civilians, including three children, a domestic human rights group and local residents said.
Karenni militias have been battling the military for decades in their campaign for greater autonomy in Kayah and Shan states, but the conflict has worsened in recent months as the Burmese army targets People’s Defense Force fighters who have taken up arms against the military since the 2021 coup.
The two sides have been engaged in armed conflict in Moebye – also known as Mongpai – township in southern Shan state since May 25.
Among those who died were more than 20 men and 10 women, as well as three minors aged eight, 13 and 18, according to Karenni Human Rights Group.
Banyar, executive director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said that the victims were killed by heavy artillery or because they caught fire as they were trapped in the middle of the fighting.
“They were either killed in the town of Moebye, hit by heavy artillery or shot to death, Banyar, the group’s executive director, told Radio Free Asia on Monday. “Some of them were arrested before being killed. Some were shot at. Some were killed as heavy artillery shelling hit them.”
The organization collected 12 dead bodies and buried them during the first week of June, though some corpses still cannot be collected on account of security issues, Banyar said.
The latest round of civilian deaths comes as the military steps up attacks on its adversaries in the southern Shan and Kayah state townships of Moebye, Pinlaung and Pekon.
Junta forces have conducted airstrikes and heavy artillery assaults on areas where fighters from the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, or PKPF – a local offshoot of the anti-regime People’s Defense Forces – are believed to be, killing civilians in the process.
Relief workers have had difficulties helping the injured and collecting dead bodies because junta troops are everywhere in Moebye, arresting and killing locals, said aid worker Nwe Oo said.
“I’ve heard that there are injured people in Si Kar and Done Tu Htan wards in town, but because we haven’t had a chance to go in, we haven’t been able to bring them out,” she said. “We have to be very vigilant as the fighting has been intense and complicated.”
Artillery fire
To make matters worse, junta forces have blocked some roads in Moebye and have kept open a main road for pedestrian use, she said.
A Moebye resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said military troops fired heavy artillery into residential areas.
“We heard gunshot exchanges and artillery fire non-stop last night,” he said, estimating that about 450 junta soldiers have been stationed in high-rise buildings, schools and residential homes.
The resident said three members of a friend’s family were killed on the spot with heavy artillery as they hid in a bomb shelter.
“Because telephone communication has not been reliable, there is no way we will be able to leave the town,” he said.
The junta has not yet issued any statements about the situation in Moebye. RFA could not reach Khun Thein Maung, Shan state’s economic minister and junta spokesman, for comment.
A PKPF official told RFA there have been casualties on both sides in the fighting, and some civilians are still caught up in it.
There have been many casualties among members of the People’s Defense Forces and the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, an armed insurgent group formed after the 2021 military coup, and among junta troops who have been firing heavy artillery non-stop, the official said.
“Some civilians have been trapped in town,” he said. “Some people have taken refuge in the monastery because they thought they would be safe there. We heard that some of them managed to sneak out of town, but we don’t know how exactly they escaped.”
More than 50 civilians, including 13 children under the age of 18, died in Moebye between February 2021, when the military seized power from the elected government, and this June 12, according to PKPF figures.
Moebye has a population of about 30,000 people. Some residents remain in about three of the township’s 10 wards, while the rest have fled the fighting.
RFA News