‘First We Killed Her Mother’ – Myanmar Soldier Confesses to Gang Rape
She survived a bullet. Then, her throat was slit.
The 33-year-old woman was the last one killed during a “raid” of a village in Rakhine State’s Minbya Township on Jan. 17, according to a confession from Ko Ko Aung.
The confession was videotaped by the Arakan Army which has detained him.
Ko Ko Aung said he was among the five soldiers in the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion 205 who raped the woman, after killing an elderly man and her mother.
The victim watched as her mother was shot twice in the head, before she was dragged under their stilted home and raped.
A video released by the Arakan Army on Sunday shows Ko Ko Aung admitting to the murders and gang rape. He is shown reenacting them.
His unit arrived in Minbya Township by boat on Jan. 17 and then marched to Nga Tan Pyin village, he says.
An elderly man was the first person found. He was killed. The killing was ordered by the unit’s commander, a major, Ko Ko Aung says.
The rape victim and her 64-year-old mother were the next to be apprehended. Almost every other resident of the village had fled.
They were arrested outside their home.
Sergeant Kyaw Myo Oo shot the elderly woman twice in the head after receiving approval from captain Nay Lin Kyaw to kill her, Ko Ko Aung says in the video.
After killing her mother, Sergeant Kyaw Myo Oo then dragged the daughter to the ground under her stilted home and raped her. After he was finished, Lance Corporal Thura Naing and three other soldiers, including Ko Ko Aung, took turns raping her.
In the video taken by his captors, Ko Ko Aung said he shot the rape victim in the chest after he and his comrades were finished raping her. The shooting took place in front of her house.
She did not die from the bullet, Ko Ko Aung says. Because she was still alive, Lance Corporal Thura Naing slit her throat, he explains.
After committing murder and gang rape, the unit was attacked by troops from the Arakan Army. Ko Ko Aung was the only one of the five soldiers he said raped the woman to survive.
The captain who ordered the murders and rape, Nay Lin Kyaw, later died at a military base after suffering burns during a clash with Arakan Army troops, Ko Ko Aung said.
In late January, Rakhine media identified the victims in Nga Tan Pyin Village by name. Besides the mother and daughter, U Maung Saw Thein, 62, was slain.
Junta soldiers also massacred seven Rakhine civilian detainees, including a former journalist and a rapper, at a military headquarters in Rakhine State’s Mrauk-U Township last January.
Junta battalion commander Major Thein Htike Soe, Mrauk-U District Police Chief Khin Maung Soe and army captain Arkar Myint confessed to involvement in the execution of the seven people in late February after they were detained by the Arakan Army.
