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Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

June 14, 2022/in Documentation Resources, News

Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories Evidence of atrocities revealed on a soldier’s lost cell phone Editor’s note: This story contains images and descriptions that some readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised. By Khin Maung Soe and Nayrein Kyaw for RFA Burmese Two armed men stand behind a tangle of bodies leaking blood which […]

Mandalay doctor believed to have been killed during interrogation turns up in prison

June 13, 2022/in News

Dr Aung Aung Tun is actually alive and being held in Obo Prison along with his sister, Myanmar Now has learned A clinic owner rumoured to have been killed while under interrogation after his arrest more than a month ago is actually being held in Mandalay’s Obo Prison, according to a source close to his […]

Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

June 14, 2022/in Documentation Resources, News

Mandalay doctor believed to have been killed during interrogation turns up in prison

June 13, 2022/in News

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

June 14, 2022/in Documentation Resources, News

Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

Evidence of atrocities revealed on a soldier’s lost cell phone

Editor’s note: This story contains images and descriptions that some readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

By Khin Maung Soe and Nayrein Kyaw for RFA Burmese

Two armed men stand behind a tangle of bodies leaking blood which congeals in the dust. Each of the five victims is blindfolded, hands tied behind their back, and appear to have been killed by gunfire or a blade to the throat. The armed men – one with his rifle slung over his shoulder and the other smoking a cigarette – strike a nonchalant pose that is recorded for posterity in a series of grisly photos captured on a soldier’s phone.

These graphic images are among a cache of files recently obtained by RFA Burmese that document atrocities apparently committed by soldiers during military operations in Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region. The files include a video in which those two same armed men brag about how many people they have killed, and how they have killed them.

The content was retrieved from a cell phone that was found by a villager in Sagaing’s Ayadaw township where the military had been conducting raids amid an offensive against the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group. An intermediary who obtained the video and photos forwarded them to RFA in Washington.

Among the many images is one of about 30 men with their hands tied behind their backs on the grounds of a monastery.

Among the many images is one of about 30 men with their hands tied behind their backs on the grounds of a monastery. Two of them appear to be the same men who are seen dead in the photos taken a day later of the five victims of execution.

Another series of photos shows a young man with his arms bound behind him, his face puffy and bloodied. An outstretched hand holds his chin up, forcing him to look into the camera, while a second hand holds a knife to his chest over his heart.

The images also include many ‘selfie’ photos of a soldier, seemingly the phone’s owner. He also features in the video and the photos of the dead bodies.

The 10 1/2-minute video shows him and two other men mugging for the camera and chatting in crude terms about the number of people they have killed and what they did with the bodies. The phone’s owner, who wears a wide smile and sometimes slurs his words, has a hand grenade pinned to his chest. More armed men can be seen in the background.

“You said you killed 26 people. How did you kill them? Just shooting them with a gun?” asks the phone’s owner of one of his fellow soldiers.

“Of course, we killed them with our guns. But not with our hands,” the soldier responds.

“For us, we even killed a lot by slitting their throats. I, myself, killed five,” the phone’s owner says.

“I have never [slit throats],” the third soldier chimes in.

The second soldier then reconsiders his personal tally of death. “I think eight,” he says. “I killed eight [by slitting throats].”

Clues in the images

A closer look at the photos provides proof that these men serve in Myanmar’s military. Soldiers in the photos sport the arm badge of the Myanmar Army and, in at least one photo, the Northwest Military Command based in Sagaing. Soldiers are seen with bamboo baskets normally used as backpacks by junta soldiers. Numbers on rifle butts in the photos even help identify one military unit.

RFA asked Capt. Lin Htet Aung, a defector from the military who has joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), about the evidence. He said the numbers “708” and “4” seen on the guns indicate they are from the 4th Company of the Light Infantry Battalion 708 (708 LIB). The battalion belongs to the Yangon-based Military Operations Command No. 4 (MOC-4) which has been deployed to Sagaing and Magway regions and may be involved in joint operations there, he said.

When contacted about the material recovered from the cell phone, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that authorities had opened a probe into the matter.

“Regarding these incidents, we can respond only after investigation in the field,” he said. “We are now investigating it.”

The statements made by the men in the video appear in line with reports of attacks on civilians by junta troops in Sagaing and elsewhere in Myanmar, amid military offensives against the PDF, ethnic armies, and other anti-junta forces.

There have been widespread reports of soldiers arbitrarily detaining residents during village raids, looting their homes, setting buildings ablaze, and torturing, raping, and murdering inhabitants they accuse of assisting the armed resistance. The junta has previously denied such allegations or attributed the incidents to the PDF.

Sagaing region, home to around 5.3 million people, has seen some of the worst fighting between the military and the opposition since the junta seized power in February 2021. Thai NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) says junta authorities have killed nearly 2,000 people in Myanmar since the coup, including at least 683 in Sagaing.

In photos from the phone, soldiers have the arm badge of the Northwest Military Command, which is based in Sagaing region.

The images obtained by RFA provide a rare glimpse into the lives of perpetrators of the ongoing atrocities in Myanmar under junta rule. While the victims of raids have documented the aftermath of such incidents, it is rare to hear directly from those responsible, speaking in detail about how they committed the acts and attempting to justify them.

A careful review of the data from the images found they had been taken on a Chinese-made OPPO phone. The photo of the young man being interrogated at knifepoint was taken on April 28, 2022, while the photo of the bound captives was taken on May 10, and the photos of the five execution victims were taken on May 11.

Local media reports suggest killings by the military took place in Ayadaw township around the time the photos were taken. According to a May 11 Facebook post by the Ayadaw Post, junta troops entered Ayadaw’s Chin Pin village, shot six guards, and abducted 30 people on May 7.

But reporting by RFA indicates the photos may actually have been taken in neighboring Ye-U township. One of the slain men in the May 11 photo was wearing a t-shirt advertising a grocery store in the township.

This photo (blurred to cover the graphic scene) shows the phone owner and a man who also appeared in the video standing next to five slain men lying in pools of blood. Two of the slain men also can be seen in the photo from the previous day showing about 30 men with their hands tied behind their backs on the grounds of a monastery.

A resident of Ye-U told RFA that the May 10 image of the 30 men with their hands tied appears to have been taken at Mon Taing Pin monastery in the township. A separate source also confirmed that another photo, taken April 26 and showing a roofed walkway, resembles a pagoda at Wet Phyu village, which lies 17.5 miles (28 kilometers) to the west of Mon Taing Pin. RFA is not naming these and other sources for safety reasons.

RFA previously reported that 27 people were killed in Ye-U township’s Mon Taing Pin and In Pin villages some time between May 10 and May 12. Villagers said the incident began late on May 9, when Mon Taing Pin village came under fire from small arms, artillery and mortars. Initially, two PDF members guarding the village were killed in the gunfire before the military raided it.

One villager in Mon Taing Pin said the soldiers rounded up several dozen men from the village, aged between about 20 and 60, and they were detained in the monastery. He said the men were beaten up and killed and then put inside houses in the village which were set on fire.

Photos provided to RFA by residents of the aftermath of the incident included images of razed buildings, human remains nearly completely incinerated by fire, bloated corpses, and the lower part of a severed torso – the legs of which had also been removed and left at the scene.

Boasting of killing

Details about the disposal of victims’ bodies provided by the three soldiers in the video found on the cell phone sound strikingly similar to the state of the remains discovered in Ye-U township last month. And the lack of emotion in the soldiers’ voices as they discuss the incident suggests that killing has become normal behavior for them.

“Seriously. I have killed people before. And I don’t like blood. It’s nauseating, though I killed them. Cut them in three parts,” the phone’s owner says.

“I killed those whom I caught. And the sergeant told us to cut them in three pieces and bury them,” the soldier who claims to have killed more than two dozen people responds.

The phone’s owner goes on to describe covering up his handiwork, using slurred speech that suggests he isn’t sober.

“One guy had his head blown off at the back. He had burns all over his body and his skin was peeling off. Yuck, it was horrible,” he says.

“I had to cut off the head, bro. I had to chop it off [and it took] five or six tries … Pieces of flesh came out, like pork. But human flesh is yellowish.”

He goes on to brag that he is “an expert in killing.”

The photos on the phone include many selfies of a soldier, who appears to have been the phone owner. He also is seen in the video and the photos of the slain men.

But the boasting is intermingled with more plaintive comments, in which the soldiers compare themselves to “driftwood,” obliged to follow orders, and lament that they could be killed at any time.

“Do you know why I didn’t complain then [when we had to cut up the bodies]? [Our superiors] were leading the fight and I didn’t want to say anything. Otherwise, there’s no need to cut off their heads,” the phone’s owner says at one point.

“What is life? It’s a fight. You win or you die. But our lives don’t seem to matter whether we live or not … [This video is] just for the record. We’re brothers. If I get killed, you won’t see me anymore, but you can remember me with this.”

Reports of the military’s targeting of civilians since the coup led to U.S. sanctions last year against the 33rd Light Infantry Division (33 LID) and the 77th Light Infantry Division (77 LID) of Myanmar’s Army over “excessive force, including killings” following their deployment to Mandalay and Yangon, respectively.

The 33 LID was also the target of U.S. sanctions in 2018 “for engaging in serious human rights abuse” against the ethnic Rohingya during alleged “terrorist” clearance operations a year earlier in Rakhine state. Atrocities committed by soldiers from the 33 LID and the 99 LID during that campaign, which forced more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to Bangladesh and was subsequently designated an act of genocide by Washington, were documented in a groundbreaking investigative report by Reuters news agency in June 2018.

Click to expand In all, 144 photos were found on the phone. Some of the images have been blurred due to the graphic nature of the content or to protect the privacy of the individuals.

Web page produced by: Minh-Ha Le
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Translated: Khin Maung Nyane
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Video: Chris Billing
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Editing: Paul Eckert, Kyaw Kyaw Aung, Kyaw Min Htun, H. Léo Kim, Paul Nelson, Joshua Lipes, Mat Pennington
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Produced by Radio Free Asia
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© 2022 RFA
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Mandalay doctor believed to have been killed during interrogation turns up in prison

June 13, 2022/in News

Dr Aung Aung Tun is actually alive and being held in Obo Prison along with his sister, Myanmar Now has learned

A clinic owner rumoured to have been killed while under interrogation after his arrest more than a month ago is actually being held in Mandalay’s Obo Prison, according to a source close to his family.

Dr Aung Aung Tun, 28, was detained with his father, sister and another relative on April 26 for allegedly providing shelter to doctors taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), which aims to topple the junta. His home and three branches of his Thuriya clinic were subsequently sealed off.

While two of his family members, including his father, were released, there was no update provided by the junta on Aung Aung Tun’s condition or charges since his arrest.

He has been charged with violating Section 50j of the Counterterrorism Law, according to a source close to his family, but it was not clear when the charges were filed or when he had been transferred to Obo Prison.

“Only he and his sister are still in detention, I heard,” the source told Myanmar Now.

It was not known at the time of reporting if Aung Aung Tun’s sister was also facing charges.

Several doctors in Mandalay told Myanmar Now that Aung Aung Tun’s arrest was a great loss to the medical field, and described him as having a “heart of gold.”

The military revoked the medical licences of 14 specialist doctors in Mandalay on March 12 and have reportedly been pressuring private hospitals and clinics to not employ staff who have taken part in the CDM and to submit daily patient lists to the junta.

“Everyone is facing all sorts of troubles under the military’s reign,” Dr Soe Thura Zaw, who was among the doctors who lost their licences, told Myanmar Now at the time. “The only way to solve all those problems once and for all is to end the dictatorship for good.”

Around 80 percent of Mandalay’s medical personnel have joined the CDM, according to data compiled by members of the movement, with many opting to treat people privately rather than work under the junta-controlled health ministry.

Thuriya_clinic_-_2.Jpeg

Junta personnel seen sealing a branch of Dr Aung Aung Tun’s Thuriya clinic (Supplied)

Medical staff have suffered brutal reprisals for challenging the military. In August last year Dr Maung Maung Nyein Tun died in custody of Covid-19 after being beaten and denied medical treatment.

During a major crackdown on March 27 of last year, Mandalay-based doctor Thiha Tin Tun was one of over 100 people shot dead by security forces.

In June, the former head of Myanmar’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout, Dr Htar Htar Lin, was arrested and charged with high treason after she sought to prevent the junta from accessing funds meant to fight the virus. She was sentenced to three years in prison in April.

The civilian National Unity Government has reported that some 35,000 healthcare providers nationwide are taking part in the CDM.

Coup leader Min Aung Hlaing said late last year that there were 10,000 doctors currently working in the public health sector.

An officer who is not participating in the CDM told Myanmar Now that the military’s health ministry in Naypyitaw transferred some 200 army doctors and nurses into public hospitals in February and March.

The junta spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

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Half Sized Blog Element (Single Author Style)

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Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

Mandalay doctor believed to have been killed during interrogation turns up in prison

Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

Mandalay doctor believed to have been killed during interrogation turns up in prison

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

Myanmar troops swap slaughter stories

Evidence of atrocities revealed on a soldier’s lost cell phone

Clues in the images

Boasting of killing

Mandalay doctor believed to have been killed during interrogation turns up in prison

Thuriya_clinic_-_2.Jpeg

ND Burma

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