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Murders in Yangon and Mandalay linked to Thwe Thout

May 23, 2022/in News

Anti-regime forces who killed alleged members of the group last week say they had a hit list of more than 150 intended victims Attacks targeting supporters of Myanmar’s ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), left at least four people dead in Yangon and Mandalay late last week. On Thursday, two unidentified gunmen […]

More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

May 23, 2022/in News

About 90 people, including women and children, were aboard the boat heading to Malaysia More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and […]

Murders in Yangon and Mandalay linked to Thwe Thout

May 23, 2022/in News

More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

May 23, 2022/in News

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Murders in Yangon and Mandalay linked to Thwe Thout

May 23, 2022/in News

Anti-regime forces who killed alleged members of the group last week say they had a hit list of more than 150 intended victims

Attacks targeting supporters of Myanmar’s ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), left at least four people dead in Yangon and Mandalay late last week.

On Thursday, two unidentified gunmen entered a fabric store in Yangon’s Thaketa Township and shot three people at close range. Honey Oo, a 22-year-old physics student, died instantly after being shot twice in the head, sources said.

Her uncle, 40-year-old Ye Naing Aung, later reportedly died of his injuries at a military hospital, while the condition of her mother—who sources did not identify by name—could not be confirmed.

A member of a social welfare group in Thaketa Township told Myanmar Now that the victims were all known to be NLD supporters.

Min Thurein, the information officer for the Eastern Yangon University Student Union, confirmed Honey Oo’s death. He also indicated that Ye Naing Aung appeared to be the primary target of the attack.

“They started shooting at Ye Naing Aung when he came out. When he began to flee in a panic, they proceeded to shoot Honey Oo and her mother,” he said.

Sources also noted that the victims were Muslims and that Ye Naing Aung took part in protests against last year’s coup, which saw the ouster of the country’s elected NLD government.

While no group took responsibility for the attack, it came less than a month after a new pro-junta group calling itself Thwe Thout launched “Operation Red,” a campaign intended to instil terror in opponents of the regime.

Since then, at least 19 murders and abductions have been attributed to the group.

More than half of the victims so far have been in Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, where two more people were killed on Friday.

Mya Mya and her daughter, Khin San Aye, were found dead in their home in Mandalay’s Chanayethazan Township after being murdered and robbed of jewellery, a motorcycle, and more than 3m kyat ($1,600) in cash, according to sources.

A local resident who did not want to be identified said that Mya Mya, who was in her 60s, and her daughter both had their hands tied behind their backs and had been stabbed repeatedly.

They also had lanyards bearing the Thwe Thout logo around their necks, the source said.

In addition to leaving its calling card, the group also posted a message on its Telegram channel justifying the brutal attack, accusing Mya Mya of funding the anti-junta Myaing People’s Defence Force on a monthly basis.

While this claim could not be confirmed, local residents said that Mya Mya and Khin San Aye were vocal supporters of the NLD.
Kyaw_kyaw_min.jpg

The body of an alleged Thwe Thout member lies face down on the ground after being killed in an attack by anti-regime forces on May 19 (Supplied)

Meanwhile, on Thursday anti-regime forces in Mandalay Region’s Nyaung-U Township said they attacked a group of Thwe Thout members suspected of plotting more murders.

The assault, which took place in Auk Nyint, a village about 20km northeast of the town of Nyaung-U, targeted the village’s junta-appointed administrator San Shwe and two members of Thwe Thout from Mandalay, as well as other alleged co-conspirators.

Three members of the group were killed and one was injured, according to a statement released on Friday by an alliance of guerrilla groups that took part in the attack.

More than 300 residents of the village were forced to flee after junta troops arrived a few hours later, the resistance forces said.

The statement also claimed that the alleged Thwe Thout members had a list of more than 150 names of individuals who had been singled out for assassination.

The anti-regime groups said they would not release the list, but had informed those named as potential targets.

Myanmar Now News

More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

May 23, 2022/in News

About 90 people, including women and children, were aboard the boat heading to Malaysia

More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and rescue workers said.

The passengers, refugees from deadly crackdowns on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar troops that have driven nearly a million people into camps in Rakhine and neighboring Bangladesh, had paid U.S. $1,500-2,500 each to traffickers to take them to Malaysia, where they hoped to find employment, some of the Rohingya survivors told RFA.

More than 50 other passengers remain missing, and more than 20 survivors, mostly men, have been detained by local authorities at the Shwe Thaung Yan township police station in Pathein district of Ayeyarwady region, the sources said.

“Ninety people were said to be on the boat, 23 were arrested, and 14 dead bodies have been found so far, most of them children around 11 or 12 years of age,” said a Shwe Thaung Yan resident who declined to be named for safety reasons.

RFA has not been able to independently confirm the figures.

Seven bodies were recovered after they washed ashore Sunday near the popular Shwe Thaung Yan beach, local rescue workers said. Six others were found earlier in the afternoon in the Wetlet area, and another body washed up on the shore in Shwe Thaung Yan’s ward No. 1.

The bodies were not found on the resort side of the beach, one local said.

One rescue worker said the bodies were buried Sunday night with the help of Muslim religious leaders from Pathein.

“The bodies were buried yesterday,” he said. “The leaders of their religious group came and buried them. We found another dead body in Shwe Thaung Yan No. 1 ward at about 5.30 p.m. The Muslim leaders buried it too. They came from Pathein.”

The passengers were trying to reach Malaysia from displacement camps in Rakhine’s Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, locals said.

The ward administrator said that the traffickers and some people about 20 years of age were found alive.

“The single body found in our ward was that of a 10-year-old girl,” he said.

He speculated that the boat may have been sunk in a cyclone.

“The sea around here is very scary. Storms come unannounced sometimes,” he said.

Traffickers apprehended

Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling junta, said that the boat capsized about five nautical miles west of Thapyay Hmaw Island near Shwe Thaung Yan.

“A search was carried out and found 14 Bengalis dead. The rest will be deported as usual,” he said.

Authorities captured five “suspects” in Shwe Thaung Yan’s Thae Gone village at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Zaw Min Tun said.

“We checked them and found them to be human traffickers. They were bringing these Bengalis from [Rakhine’s] Rathedaung [township] by boat to go to Yangon and then to Malaysia,” he said, using a derogatory term for Rohingya, who in Myanmar are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

In addition to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees in Rakhine, more than 740,000 Rohingya have been sheltering since a 2017 crackdown at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where they are fenced in and not allowed to work outside their confines.

Rohingya in the camps and those still in western Myanmar pay traffickers to transport them to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to find work and a better life. Groups of Rohingya have also packed into boats and sailed off in search of asylum in other countries, often only to be denied entry.

Tin Hlaing from the Rohingya displacement camp in Thetkeibyin village, Sittwe township, said many have tried to leave Myanmar with the help of traffickers, which in most cases has not ended well.

“They left because there are a lot of difficulties in the refugee camps here,” he said. “About 90% of them had financial problems. Jobs are scarce. In some cases, children have grown up. … That’s why they leave.”

The Rohingya often ignore warnings of camp administrators about the risks of paying traffickers to transport them, Tin Hlaing said.

“About 35 out of 100 people make it,” he said. “They have to pay a lot of money to the traffickers and now they are losing their lives.”

“The latest tragedy shows once again the sense of desperation being felt by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region,” Indrika Ratwatte, director of the regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a statement issued Monday. “It is shocking to see increasing numbers of children, women and men embarking on these dangerous journeys and eventually losing their lives.”

At least 1,000 Rohingya have left internal displacement camps in Rakhine’s Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe township s every year in an effort to eke out a living elsewhere. They usually must pay traffickers 3 million-5 million kyats (U.S. $1,600-2,700) per person to be smuggled.

Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Rohingya Liberation Coalition, said Rohingya hoping for a better future in Malaysia have been repeatedly deceived by traffickers

“People are not allowed to travel, [and] their working rights are restricted, so they try to flee, thinking that if they go to Malaysia, they will find a brighter future,” he said.

RFA could not reach Maung Maung Than, social affairs minister of Ayeyarwady region, for comment.

Myanmar police arrested 41 Rohingya in Shwe Taung Yan’s Nwe Nyo Chaung village on March 22 after their boat broke down and was stranded on the beach.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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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