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Junta soldiers massacre and burn 11, including teenagers, during raid on village in Sagaing

December 7, 2021/in News

The victims, all of whom were unarmed, included a disabled civilian and 10 members of local anti-junta guerrilla forces This report contains disturbing images Eleven unarmed people, including teenagers, were captured and massacred by junta soldiers in a village in Sagaing Region on Tuesday, shortly before locals found the smoldering remains of their burnt bodies. […]

Human Rights Situation in Myanmar: Post-Coup (29 November – 5 December) 2021

December 6, 2021/in HR Situation

Ten months have now passed since the attempted coup in Myanmar. In the time that has elapsed, horrifying rights abuses have been perpetrated against local people who have exemplified a spirited resistance to the junta. The regime is armed with weapons and uses force as a fear mongering tactic. Civilians have what the military lacks […]

Junta soldiers massacre and burn 11, including teenagers, during raid on village in Sagaing

December 7, 2021/in News

Human Rights Situation in Myanmar: Post-Coup (29 November – 5 December) 2021

December 6, 2021/in HR Situation

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Junta soldiers massacre and burn 11, including teenagers, during raid on village in Sagaing

December 7, 2021/in News

The victims, all of whom were unarmed, included a disabled civilian and 10 members of local anti-junta guerrilla forces

This report contains disturbing images

Eleven unarmed people, including teenagers, were captured and massacred by junta soldiers in a village in Sagaing Region on Tuesday, shortly before locals found the smoldering remains of their burnt bodies.

Some 100 soldiers raided Done Taw in Salingyi Township at around 11am after guerrilla fighters detonated explosives in an attack against a military convoy travelling nearby, local media reported.

Villagers found the badly charred bodies of the 11 victims in a pile, some with their hands tied, leading many to assume they were burned alive.

“The victims were taking shelter in a makeshift hut while running away from the military raiding their village,” said someone who is helping to organise their funerals. “The soldiers found them, beat them up and burned them.”

Done Taw is near the Letpadaung copper mine, which is owned by the military conglomerate MEHL and a Chinese company named Wanbao.

The Salingyi G-Z Local People’s Defence Force (PDF) also said the victims were burned alive after the soldiers beat them.

The leader of the Done Taw PDF, a self-organising anti-junta guerrilla group, added that the 11 were unarmed when they were captured. “They beat them to the brink of death and burned them alive before they died. Some of them are not even 18,” he said.

It is unclear if there were any eyewitnesses to the incident and Myanmar Now was unable to immediately confirm the exact circumstances of their deaths.

The victims were all male and included a 40-year-old with paraplegia and five teenagers under the age of 18, while the rest were aged 30 or younger, according to a list compiled by the Done Taw PDF.

The paraplegic man was the only victim who was not a member of the Done Taw PDF, the leader said.

Most of the victims were unrecognisable from being so badly burned, he added, except for 17-year-old Than Myint Aung, who was identifiable from his ear piercing.

All 10 PDF members worked as volunteers helping Covid-19 patients before joining the resistance against the junta, he added.

A video filmed by locals showed a group of burnt bodies lying in various positions in a pile of ashes with smoke still rising from the remains of what appears to have been a hut.

“Motherfucker,” says one of the people in the video, using a Burmese phrase that plays on the spelling of military chief Min Aung Hlaing’s name. “They’re not even recognisable anymore.”

The soldiers found the 11 victims on a betel farm at around 11am, around which time villagers heard gunshots and saw smoke rising from near that area, the PDF leader said. “They didn’t know that the soldiers were coming there until it was too late,” he said.

He added that he believed the victims were not shot dead.

Villagers were still fleeing for their safety when they gave accounts to Myanmar Now in the chaotic aftermath of the killings.

The 11 victims “were running through the farm and got shot and were taken to the hut where they were burned,” said a Done Taw villager.

Another local said she saw a monk get shot in the arm when soldiers started firing from the North Yamar bridge at around 7am.

“I saw the monk get shot with my own eyes,” she told Myanmar Now. “I heard that the bullet went neatly through his arm. I didn’t get to see his arm though.” The monk was not one of the 11 who were caught and he survived the gunshot, she added.

The victims included several teenagers and a man who was paraplegic (Supplied)

Early on Tuesday morning the Done Taw PDF attacked a convoy of military vehicles using three homemade explosives near the North Yamar bridge, which is about 300 meters from the village.

After the attack, soldiers began searching for the assailants in nearby woodlands, the PDF leader said. The soldiers were then seen entering the village from near the Pathein-Monywa road at 8am, according to other locals.

Their arrival led to people fleeing from nine villages in Salingyi and neighbouring Yinmabin Township, including Done Taw, Kyay Sarkya, Kan Kone and Aung Moe.

“They marched into the region on foot via the North Yamar bridge. They had a car with them as well. They also fired heavy and light weapons in the area,” said a villager from Kyay Sarkya village, which neighbours Done Taw.

Done Taw has only one entrance and exit route, through the Shwe Myin Tin farm on the bank of the Chindwin river, locals said. The lack of escape routes was likely the reason the 11 victims were captured, they added.

A local man living close to Done Taw said the soldiers who terrorised the area stationed themselves on Tuesday evening on Laynhyin hill, about a mile away from Done Taw.

The Done Taw PDF gave Myanmar Now a list naming ten of the 11 victims. They are: Arkar Soe, 14; Hsan Min Oo, 17; Than Myint Aung, 17; Kyaw Thet, 17; Chit Nan Oo, 19; Win Kaw, 20; Htet Ko, 22; Zin Min Tun, 22; Tin Naing, 30, and U Soe, 40.

The unnamed eleventh victim was 17 years old, the group said.

Earlier this year junta soldiers massacred dozens in the Sagaing township of Kani.

Editor’s note: after Myanmar Now published this story, it emerged that U Soe, 40, was not among the 11 victims and had survived the military raid. More details about the error can be found here.

(Reporting by Khin Yi Yi Zaw, Maung Shwe Wah, Zaw Ye Thwe and Wathone Nyein Aye)

Myanmar Now News

Human Rights Situation in Myanmar: Post-Coup (29 November – 5 December) 2021

December 6, 2021/in HR Situation

The National Unity Government (NUG), a government of and for the people, has been offering the international community multiple pathways for dialogue and interaction, as to not legitimize or recognize the illegal junta. At the United Nations, civil society organizations, alongside the NUG, have been vocal in their demands that a junta representative must not be granted a seat. Over the last week, the nine member Credentials Committee of the General Assembly, which is the body responsible for approving UN representatives, decided to refer a decision on who will be selected to speak for Myanmar, as well as Afghanistan. This in effect means that U Kyaw Moe Tun, who was appointed by the National League for Democracy (NLD), will continue to be the permanent representative for the time being. This step was welcomed by the NUG, though the military junta not surprisingly criticized the UN for denying its envoy.

Pressure on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to not recognize the junta remains. Cambodia will become the chairman of ASEAN beginning in 2022. Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, invited the junta appointed foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin to a meeting in the next week. The decision has spurred suspicions that Cambodia will not take a hardline against Myanmar’s assaults and violent suppression of human rights in the country. A new report released by the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) found that of the ‘dramatic rise’ in attacks against opposition Members of Parliament, those in Myanmar were the worst and were an ‘example of a wider trend of closing democratic space in the region.’ The NLD’s Central Working Committee reported that over 570 NLD party members have been detained since February. Only 128 of those detained have been released, and 432 remain in custody.

The urgency for the international community to intervene with concrete action such as targeted sanctions and a global arms embargo is growing every day.

CHIN STATE

According to the Chin Human Rights Organization, over 200 more homes were destroyed over the course of five days between 25 and 29 November. More than 473 structures have been intentionally destroyed by the military junta in Thantlang. Satellite tools and mapping resources by Human Rights Watch detected several thermal anomalies over Thantlang, Chin State, on at least 10 different dates in the past month, during the day and at night. Evidence suggests these fires were deliberately set by the military junta. Photos circulated online showed the mountainous town disappearing as homes, villages and land are being intentionally burnt to the ground.

Religious freedoms, freedom of mobility and the right to safety, shelter and protection are all being undermined as the junta commits war crimes with impunity.

KACHIN STATE

In Kachin State, the presence of the military junta is continuing to undermine civilian safety. An IDP camp and church in Momauk, Kachin State, was damaged after it was shelled by the military junta. More human rights violations followed, with thirty civilians being abducted to be used as human shields while soldiers patrolled the town. Locals were taken from the market, schools and hospitals to guide the junta. Women and children were among those in the regime’s custody. All detainees were released later in the evening.

Bomb blasts in recent days in Kachin State have led to injuries. At a high school in Hpakant, six people were hurt when a school bus struck a landmine. Very few students have dared return to school as instability wreaks havoc in the region and sparks fears. Soldiers have also taken to patrolling classrooms.

On 30 November, the Kachin Independence Army ambushed a junta convoy with a landmine in Mohnyin Township, Kachin State. In retaliation for the at least seven soldiers killed in the attack, the junta launched an artillery attack and shelled a local village. Three homes were damaged and livestock was killed by the shells.

SAGAING REGION

Over 30,000 residents from 15 villages in Sagaing region were forced to flee airstrikes fired by the military junta. Five helicopters by the regime were used to send additional soldiers to fight the local People’s Defence Forces (PDF). The attack was in retaliation for heavy casualties faced by the junta. Witnesses recalled the helicopters firing ‘at anyone they could see.’

Soldiers also set fire to 20 homes and two barns in Kalay Township. The junta targeted homes that they believed had occupants with ties to the PDF.

An additional five displaced civilians were killed by the junta as soldiers raided villages and refugee camps in Gangaw township, where hundreds of troops have been deployed. A series of serious human rights violations are being deployed including torture, sexual harassment and arson. The increasing military presence has been devastating for innocent people caught in the crossfire. An arms embargo must be immediately enforced.

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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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