Human Rights Situation weekly update (Aug 1 to 7, 2024)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 1 to 7, 2024

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Mandalay Region, Shan State, Chin State, and Rakhine State from August 1st to 7th. The Military Junta is making lists and arresting youths for batch 4th of Military Service in the Yangon and Ayeyarwady regions. The Military Junta arrested over 100 local civilians in Sagaing Region and Rakhine State.

Over 30 civilians died, and over 40 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks. 3 underaged children were injured when the Military Junta committed abuses.

Myanmar Garrison Town Sees Exodus as Junta Faces Humiliating Loss of Its ‘West Point’

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Hundreds of residents of Pyin Oo Lwin – a garrison town in Mandalay Region – have been fleeing since Thursday due to fears of an imminent attack by an ethnic army and allied resistance forces, residents say.

Family members of military personnel stationed in the town, which is home to the Defense Service Academies – Myanmar’s West Point – and other military training schools, were among the first to start fleeing the town about 70 kilometers east of the country’s second-largest city, Mandalay, residents say.

Hundreds of vehicles were seen jamming the eastern entrance to Mandalay on Thursday as the exodus from Pyin Oo Lwin accelerated, witnesses said.

The garrison town has been under threat since the fall of the headquarters of the junta’s North Eastern Military Command in Lashio, the capital of northern Shan State, to the Brotherhood Alliance and allied resistance groups coordinating Operation 1027.

Operation 1027 resumed in northern Shan State on June 25.

Operation 1027, a coordinated offensive by the Brotherhood Alliance of three ethnic armies and allied People’s Defense Force (PDFs) units under the command of the National Unity Government, began in October last year. It succeeded in capturing most of northern Shan State before a Chinese-brokered ceasefire brought it to a halt.

The operation resumed in June and expanded to northern townships of Mandalay Region, where alliance member the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and PDFs captured Nawnghkio, which borders Pyin Oo Lwin, and two other towns in northern Mandalay.

Ongoing fighting in Mandalay Region and Shan State’s Nawnghkio Township, which borders Pyin Oo Lwin. / The Irrawaddy. /Google Maps

The TNLA and its resistance allies are clashing with regime forces near the border of Pyin Oo Lwin and Nawnghkio townships, resistance groups say.

The junta’s garrison town is their next target if the TNLA and its allies continue their coordinated offensive in Mandalay.

Zin Yaw, a former soldier who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), described Pyin Oo Lwin as the last target for resistance groups from northern Shan State seeking to enter Mandalay City.

Linn Htet Aung, a former captain in the junta’s military who joined the CDM, predicted that the garrison town would fall to resistance forces quickly. “Pyin Oo Lwin will fall in a short period of time after it is attacked because the town is designated only for military training schools, not for combat,” he said.

He also said that several regime officers, including lieutenant colonels, from junta bases in Pyin Oo Lwin have recently contacted People’s Embrace – a group formed by former soldiers who joined the civil disobedience movement – for help defecting.

A businessman helping residents of the town escape said most of those fleeing are going to Mandalay, Naypyitaw and Yangon. “Most are rich people and family members of the regime’s military personnel. But I am only providing relocation services to civilians, not people related to the military regime,” he added.

The junta has sent combat troops from other regions of Myanmar to defend the town, an analyst closely monitoring Operation 1027 said, explaining that its military personnel in the town are not combat troops. Many are instructors and students at military training schools and defense academies, he said.

Towns captured by resistance groups during Operation 1027. / The Irrawaddy

One resident of the town said she and her family are staying to safeguard their property.  “We have decided not to leave because we are worried that our property will be stolen by thieves. Many of my neighbors also decided to do the same. So, I am digging a bomb shelter at my house,” she said.

The junta on Thursday dismissed news reports that relatives of regime personnel and other residents were fleeing the garrison town as fake news. It accused independent media of fanning instability in Pyin Oo Lwin.

Leaked documents, however, tell a different story. Letters from the junta’s Mandalay Region Settlement and Land Record Department leaked on Thursday instructed township offices in Pyin Oo Lwin and Patehigyi, which is adjacent Mandalay city, to develop plans to relocate their staff and remove important documents due to security concerns.

Regime troops have been deployed in residential wards of Pyin Oo Lwin and some have taken position at the University of Technology – also known as Yatanarpon Cyber City – on a main road linking Pyin Oo Lwin and Mandalay city, where the headquarters of the junta’s Central Command is based.

In early April, Mandalay PDF attacked the junta’s Defense Service Academy at Pyin Oo Lwin with 107mm rockets. The junta admitted that the resistance attack killed four people and wounded 12 more, including cadets at the academy.

Mandalay PDF and allied resistance groups recently launched attacks on regime targets in Patheingyi township in Mandalay city. The PDF groups and its allies have seized over 35 regime bases and outposts, including the headquarters of the junta’s Air Defense Battalion at Madaya township next to Mandalay city.

In July, the TNLA, Mandalay PDF and other allies took control of Singu town and the ruby town of Mogoke in northern Mandalay Region.

Irrawaddy News

Myanmar junta bombs sleeping village killing seven, rebels say

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Many people were wounded in the latest air attack in the strife-torn Mandalay region, residents said.

The Myanmar junta’s air force bombed a village in a strife-torn central region killing seven people as they slept, an insurgent group said on Thursday, the latest deaths in what opponents of the junta say is a deliberate campaign to target civilians in areas under rebel control.

Forces of the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup are increasingly relying on air power to strike back at insurgent forces who have made significant gains on the ground in several parts of the country since late last year.  

In the central Mandalay region, pro-democracy fighters in the Mandalay People’s Defense Force and allied Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, ethnic minority insurgents have captured dozens of junta positions, including the gem-mining town of Mogoke, over recent months.

But the junta has responded with deadly retaliation from the air, in a campaign the junta’s enemies say is aimed at killing civilians in a bid to warn the population off support for the rebels.

In the dead of night on Tuesday, the junta’s air force launched an attack on Mandalay region’s Payaung Taung village in a strike that appeared to be timed to catch villagers asleep in their beds to maximize casualties, the Mandalay force said in a  statement. 

“Seven people were killed when a bomb was dropped at night, four women and three men,” said a resident of the area who declined to be identified for safety reasons.

“There were also many injured people but we don’t know the details yet.” 

Radio Free Asia could not reach the junta main spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, by telephone to ask about the incident.

The Mandalay People’s Defense Force released photographs of the victims but it said it could not identify them. 

The junta’s air force launched strikes on two villages in the Mandalay region’s Singu township on Aug. 4, killing 13 people and wounding 19, the group said. 

Junta spokesmen have denied targeting civilians.

A three-party alliance of insurgent forces, including the TNLA, this week called on neighboring China to intervene with the junta to press it to stop attacking civilians. 

The insurgents have little in the way of anti-aircraft weapons to defend against junta jets.

According to data compiled by the RFA, airstrikes and heavy weapon attacks by junta troops have killed about 2,000 civilians and wounded nearly 4,000 since the 2021 coup, up to May.

RFA News

Some 5,000 Rohingya who fled recent fighting waiting to cross to Bangladesh

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The minority Muslims left their homes in western Myanmar as fighting between the junta and insurgents intensified.

Approximately 5,000 minority Rohingya Muslims attempting to flee from this week’s fighting in western Myanmar have been waiting for several days near the Naf River for an opportunity to cross into Bangladesh, residents said.

Intense combat in Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township between ethnic insurgent Arakan Army and Myanmar military junta forces have caused thousands of Rohingya to leave the township’s administrative center and surrounding villages in search of safety.

More than 1,500 Rohingya have arrived in camps in Bangladesh over the last several days, a Rohingya resident of Bangladesh identified as Mahmud Hussain told Radio Free Asia. 

“About 500 are detained by the Bangladesh Border Guard force,” he said. “They are kept in one place. More than 1,000 people have arrived in the camp.”

About 1 million stateless Rohingya refugees live in tightly packed border camps in Bangladesh. Most fled there in 2017 to escape violent crackdowns in Rakhine state that were blamed on the Myanmar military.

But more Rohingya have been seeking refuge in Bangladesh lately as security has deteriorated in Rakhine state.

People are being charged 800,000 kyat (US$150) to be carried across by boat from Maungdaw to Bangladesh, according to Hasan, a 25-year-old Rohingya man who spoke to RFA earlier this week. 

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A screenshot from a video documents the Arakan Army rescuing Muslim elders, women, men and children from the Bo Hsu Village of Maungdaw Township, Aug. 8, 2024. The civilians were trapped as human shields by the military junta and Muslim militants. (AA Info Desk via Telegram)

On Monday, homemade rockets, artillery and drones were fired at Rohingya on a riverbank, leaving dozens of people dead. 

Witnesses who spoke to RFA put the death toll as high as 200, although RFA was unable to verify those estimates.

Several Rohingya told Radio Free Asia that the Arakan Army, or AA, were responsible for the attack. The AA denied in a statement on Wednesday that their troops fired the weapons.  

Maungdaw city flashpoints

The AA has recently made gains in its fight for control of Maungdaw township – part of a wider civil conflict that has consumed much of the country since a 2021 military coup.

Residents on Thursday told RFA that junta troops continue to fight fiercely to defend their positions.

“The AA is attacking at four or five places in Maungdaw city,” one resident said. 

Thousands of civilians are trapped in the city’s junta-controlled neighborhoods. In villages near fighting taking place outside of the city, AA troops have been escorting people – most of them Rohingya – to safer areas, residents who requested anonymity for security purposes said.

Various armed groups, including the AA and some smaller groups aligned with the junta, have been using Rohingya residents as human shields in the recent fighting, according to Rohingya rights activist Mamud Kasein.

“The current situation is very terrible,” he said. “All armed groups are concerned with these crimes. International organizations must protect these civilians.”

RFA was unable to contact AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha, junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and Rakhine state Attorney General Hla Thein on Friday.

The Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon didn’t immediately reply to an email sent Friday asking for comment on the numbers of Rohingya attempting to cross into Bangladesh.

RFA News

Four more killed in sweeping crackdown in Myanmar’s Sagaing

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Junta troops have burned at least 400 houses in one Sagaing region since late July, residents said.

Myanmar junta forces shelled a village in the Sagaing region killing four people, residents said, in the latest attack in an anti-insurgent campaign in which hundreds of homes have been torched and thousands of villagers have been displaced, residents said on Friday.

The central Sagaining region, largely populated by members of the majority Burman community, has seen some of the worst of the violence that has engulfed Myanmar since the military overthrew an elected government in early 2021.

Outraged by the coup and a subsequent crackdown that shattered hopes for reform, pro-democracy activists from towns and cities, and central rural areas that had been largely peaceful for decades, have taken up arms to fight to end military rule.

Sagaing has become a hotbed of dissent and junta forces have responded with full force, including airstrikes and shelling that have killed hundreds of civilians and raids in which villages have beenlargely destroyed and residents detained and tortured.

Residents of the arid heartland region told Radio Free Asia that junta forces shelled Yinmarbin township’s Htan Taw Gyi village, about 125 kilometers (77 miles) west of the city of Mandalay, on Wednesday night for no apparent reason, killing four civilians and wounding six.

The fire from the junta camp about eight kilometers (five miles) away hit the eastern part of the village, said one resident, who declined to be identified for security reasons. 

“Three people died on the spot. Seven people were wounded but one of them died in the morning, so four people have died in total. There was no battle at that time,” said the resident.

RFA telephoned the Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, for comme but he did not answer the phone.

Residents identified the four people killed as Myint Than Aung, Phyo Zaya, Pho Thet Wai and Hlwan Moe, all aged between 20 and 40.  

The injured were receiving medical care, residents said, without giving details.

Junta spokesmen have denied targeting civilians but insurgents say the military has for decades cared little about civilian casualties as it tries to cut rebel forces off from civilian populations that sympathize with the rebels’ cause.

Homes burned

Independent verification of accounts related by residents is almost impossible but the evidence suggests junta operations in Sagaing have resulted in widespread dislocation of civilian populations and destruction.

Residents of Kanbalu township, to the north of  Yinmarbin, estimated that a junta operation there had forced about 30,000 people from their homes since a July 24 attack by a pro-democracy militia on a junta force post in Kyi Kone village.

Fighters armed with homemade or looted weapons in what are known as People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, regularly raid outposts and ambush forces throughout the country.

The July raid by the Kanbalu-based PDF sparked a junta sweep of some 20 villages in which an estimated 400 homes have been torched, residents said. 

About 70 soldiers stationed in Bo Te Kone and Min Kone villages had torched numerous homes, said one villager who fled the crackdown. The displaced were struggling to make do outdoors in the rainy season, too fearful to venture back to their villages to see what remained, he said.

“The weather is not good so our health is affected. We had no time to carry food or drinks with us when we ran, so we’re having a hard time,” said the villager, who also declined to be identified.

Junta forces have burned 95,450 civilian homes across Myanmar since the coup, according to the independent research group Data for Myanmar.

Human Rights Situation weekly update (July 22 to 31, 2024)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from July 22 to 31, 2024

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Magway Region, Tanintharyi Region, Mandalay Region, Shan State, and Rakhine State from July 22nd to 31st. The Military Junta Ships attacked with heavy artillery to the villages along the Chindwin River in Monywa Township, Sagaing Region. Prisoners from Insein Prison, Yangon Region, and Kyaiksagaw Prison, Bago Region, got Seasonal Diarrhea Disease and needed medical care. The Military the Minister of Labor gave directions to give fines to the agencies that do not provide the personal details of the coworkers and to send the people to Thailand when they show the papers that give the 25% of their tax fees that must be given to Myanmar.

Around 50 civilians died, and nearly 70 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. A civilian also died by the landmine of the Military Junta Troop.