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Myanmar Junta Planes Bomb Village Sheltering Displaced Karenni Civilians

February 28, 2022/in News

Myanmar regime forces on Sunday used aircraft to bomb Lo Bar Kho Village in Demoso Township, Kayah State, where around 3,000 internally displaced civilians (IDPs) are sheltering. Junta airplanes dropped two bombs on the village on Sunday morning, with one falling near a clinic opened for the refugees, destroying a few buildings nearby. A resistance […]

Myanmar junta troops said to have held preschoolers as ‘human shields’ after raid

February 28, 2022/in News

A military spokesman said children were detained for their protection during clashes with opposition forces. Anti-junta paramilitaries on Monday freed some 100 preschool children and other residents they say Myanmar’s military had detained as “human shields” against a counterattack in a village in embattled Sagaing region’s Yinmabin township. Residents of Yinmabin’s Chin Pone village told […]

Myanmar Junta Planes Bomb Village Sheltering Displaced Karenni Civilians

February 28, 2022/in News

Myanmar junta troops said to have held preschoolers as ‘human shields’ after raid

February 28, 2022/in News

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Myanmar Junta Planes Bomb Village Sheltering Displaced Karenni Civilians

February 28, 2022/in News

Myanmar regime forces on Sunday used aircraft to bomb Lo Bar Kho Village in Demoso Township, Kayah State, where around 3,000 internally displaced civilians (IDPs) are sheltering.

Junta airplanes dropped two bombs on the village on Sunday morning, with one falling near a clinic opened for the refugees, destroying a few buildings nearby.

A resistance fighter from Kayah State said the village is far from the frontlines of the recent fighting in the state.

“They cannot attack Lo Bar Kho Village with artillery because it is out of range, on the border of Shan and Kayah states. So, they used airplanes to drop bombs and send a warning to the refugees that there is no safe place for them within the state.”

Most of the displaced people there fled Nan Mal Kone, Pekon and Demoso. They headed for Lo Bar Kho Village thinking it would be the safest place for them.

A majority of Kayah State’s population of 200,000 people have been displaced by fighting, with clashes taking place almost daily.

A senior staffer at the Karenni State Refugee Supporting Network said the displaced people don’t dare use tarpaulin sheets as roofs for their makeshift dwellings, because junta military airplanes attack when they see blue tarpaulin roofs.

“The refugees had to run without taking any of their belongings. They didn’t dare to take tarpaulin shelters. The refugees are scattering. Some have gone into the forest,” he said. “They are in despair. They don’t know where is a safe place for them now,” he added.

The displaced people are also facing a shortage of food. The network has asked international organizations to provide emergency food supplies for the Karenni IDPs.

On Jan. 17, the junta’s indiscriminate aerial bombing killed three civilians including a 7-year-old girl in a displacement camp in Kayah State’s Hpruso Township.

Irrawaddy News

Myanmar junta troops said to have held preschoolers as ‘human shields’ after raid

February 28, 2022/in News

A military spokesman said children were detained for their protection during clashes with opposition forces.

Anti-junta paramilitaries on Monday freed some 100 preschool children and other residents they say Myanmar’s military had detained as “human shields” against a counterattack in a village in embattled Sagaing region’s Yinmabin township.

Residents of Yinmabin’s Chin Pone village told RFA’s Myanmar Service that they were attending a funeral service on Saturday when two military helicopters attacked a training camp for the prodemocracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group located just west of the settlement.

According to one witness, around 40 troops descended from two additional helicopters and arrested anyone who was unable to flee the area, including some 100 preschoolers and other villagers.

After holding the village for two days, troops left Chin Pone at around 10 a.m. on Monday — but not before torching four homes and several motorbikes.

A PDF fighter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA that when members of his group entered Chin Pone to free the detainees from the village school on Monday, they discovered more than a dozen bodies in the building.

“One of my brothers found them in the school when he went in to retrieve the children,” he said.

“He said there were four bodies in one place, two more in another place and a seventh in a third place. Additionally, there were six bodies, including a young woman’s, at the entrance of the preschool on the south side of the monastery. So, a total of 13 bodies were found. Two of them were from our village.”

The children and nine teachers and villagers were taken to a safe place by residents after the army left the area, the PDF fighter said.

Residents told RFA that while troops are no longer in the village, they were unable to retrieve the bodies because of the threat of booby-traps.

They said the military vacated Chin Pone at approximately the same time that helicopters carried out another attack on the nearby Yinmabin villages of Thabyay Aye, Kyauk Pyut and Wah Sein Taung.

“The billowing smoke can be seen from here and there is still a helicopter in the area,” said one resident, who was observing Chin Pone from a village about one mile away. “All of our stashed valuables were said to be taken away and the houses where [troops] found weapons were destroyed.”

Sources told RFA that more than 5,000 residents from some 10 surrounding villages fled their homes during the Saturday raid on Chin Pone.

‘Training terrorists’

A pro-junta media outlet reported that fighting broke out Chin Pone on Saturday after the military carried out checks on a local monastery and school following a tip that PDF units were hiding there. It said that troops killed six male and female PDF members in a firefight and seized weapons, ammunition and dozens of vehicles.

Junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun confirmed the incident, telling RFA that people in the village had been “training PDF terrorists.”

“During the raid, the security forces seized some of them along with eight homemade firearms, four homemade mortars, some mortar shells and homemade mines, he said. “The detainees are now being questioned in accordance with the law. I don’t know the numbers.

“They were holding training sessions in schools and monasteries. Some of them were killed in the clash and some of our troops were injured. The preschool children were kept in the school because the terrorists were fleeing in all directions.”

However, Ko Khant, a member of the North Yamar PDF, said the army’s detention of the children and other residents of Chin Pone village amounted to using civilians as “human shields.”

“The main reason that they were using the children as human shields is because they were afraid of being attacked,” he said.

Ko Khant said he believes that the troops detained people in the village with the intention of using them as protection because “not all of the children were trapped in the confusion” of the initial raid.

“The soldiers took them as hostages because they did not have enough strength to defend themselves,” he said. “If they became encircled and attacked by area paramilitaries, they would have suffered heavy casualties.”

Yinmabin township has been a stronghold of armed resistance to junta rule since the military seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected National League for Democracy party in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup. In the nearly 13 months since, junta forces have arrested nearly 9,400 civilians and killed 1,585 – mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests.

Authorities shut down internet access in Yinmabin six months ago in a bid to disrupt PDF communications.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

RFA News

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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.

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