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Food Shortage in Sagaing Rice Basket as Myanmar Junta Raids Force 50,000 to Flee

February 22, 2024/in News

Some 50,000 people have been displaced in Sagaing Region’s Shwebo District since Myanmar junta troops resumed deadly attacks on their villages last month, according to residents and volunteers helping displaced people. The total number of residents displaced since the 2021 coup now exceeds 70,000 in Shwebo, where rice fields are lying fallow amid a growing […]

Infants, Pregnant Woman Slain as Myanmar Junta Continues War Against Its People

February 22, 2024/in News

Warning: Graphic content At least 39 people – including children, women and senior citizens – were killed in Myanmar over the past eight days by junta forces, according to local media and resistance groups. Most of those slain were civilians, and they were killed by indiscriminate bombing or extrajudicial killings, an analysis by The Irrawaddy […]

Food Shortage in Sagaing Rice Basket as Myanmar Junta Raids Force 50,000 to Flee

February 22, 2024/in News

Infants, Pregnant Woman Slain as Myanmar Junta Continues War Against Its People

February 22, 2024/in News

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Food Shortage in Sagaing Rice Basket as Myanmar Junta Raids Force 50,000 to Flee

February 22, 2024/in News

The total number of residents displaced since the 2021 coup now exceeds 70,000 in Shwebo, where rice fields are lying fallow amid a growing food shortage.

A junta unit calling itself the Ogre Column has been raiding the district’s townships of Shwebo, Ye-U, Khin-U, Taze and Depayin since a ceasefire was agreed in neighboring Shan State in January.

Over 20,000 people displaced by junta raids between 2021 and December last year remain homeless. Over 20,000 more were displaced when junta troops raided their villages in January.

Junta forces have deployed the notorious “four cuts” strategy – designed to cut off food sources, funds, information and recruits – in the resistance hotbed of Sagaing.

On Wednesday, around 30,000 people from some 40 villages in western Taze fled when the regime called in airstrikes and infantry reinforcements, a member of the Shwebo District people’s administration told The Irrawaddy.

Displaced people in Shwebo Township. / Depayin Township displaced people support group

The junta onslaught came after the People’s Defense Force (PDF) seized and torched the Kan Htoo Ma village police station, between Taze and Ye-U towns, where around 30 junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee militias had been deployed.

Shwebo District is a rice-growing area where the country’s most popular variety, Shwebo Pawhsan, is cultivated. However, junta raids have disrupted summer paddy cultivation, sparking food shortages.

“These days, we spend more time fleeing from our homes than sleeping there. We can stay at home no more than five days in a month. And then we live in constant fear that soldiers will arrive in the village at any time. This is the time to grow summer paddy, but we can do nothing,” said a displaced villager from Ye-U Township.

Locals in Taze Township said they are unable to grow summer paddy due to the raids, adding they dare not sleep in their homes as junta troops tend to come at night.

“People flee because junta troops kill, rape, amputate and burn alive civilians during their raids,” said a member of a support group for displaced people in Depayin Township.

“And with the cold season not yet over, the cold nights mean displaced people need blankets. They also need food.”

Junta air raids in Taze Township killed a 60-year-old man and injured two travelers and a local woman on Feb. 14-15.

On Monday, junta troops backed by airstrikes clashed with local resistance fighters on the border of Taze and Ye-U, said information officer Ko Htoo Kant Zaw of the People’s Defense Comrades.

In Shwebo Township, Pyu Saw Htee militias from Myinsee village killed a three-year-old boy, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, three women aged 52, 62, 75, and a man, 62, on Feb. 15-16, according to local resistance groups.

Myinsee is one of eight junta-armed Pyu Saw Htee villages in Shwebo Township.

Ogre Column troops killed 14 civilians including a pregnant woman during raids in Ye-U, Khin-U and Depayin townships between early January and Feb. 12, according to residents. One resistance fighter was also killed in Ye-U.

The Shwebo raids involve troops from Light Infantry Battalion 708 based in Yangon Region’s Taikkyi Township, Infantry Battalion 11 based in Ayeyarwady’s Pathein Township, No. 8 Basic Military Training Depot based in Shwebo town, and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias.

Shwebo District suffered fewer raids during the anti-regime Operation 1027 offensive from November to early January in northern Shan State. However, junta forces intensified their attacks on Sagaing villages after the ethnic Brotherhood Alliance agreed to a ceasefire with the regime in Shan State in mid-January.

Irrawaddy News

Infants, Pregnant Woman Slain as Myanmar Junta Continues War Against Its People

February 22, 2024/in News

Warning: Graphic content

At least 39 people – including children, women and senior citizens – were killed in Myanmar over the past eight days by junta forces, according to local media and resistance groups.

Most of those slain were civilians, and they were killed by indiscriminate bombing or extrajudicial killings, an analysis by The Irrawaddy found.

The war crimes occurred in Bago, Mandalay and Sagaing regions as well as Mon and Shan states from Feb. 14 and 21.

On Wednesday, as clashes between the regime and anti-regime forces broke out in and around Kale town in Sagaing Region, regime forces randomly shelled residential wards of the town.

Three civilians were killed and another injured in the bombing, according to local media reports quoting residents.

On Monday, junta forces detained and killed three members of a People’s Defense Force and five other civilians – including three teens aged 14 and 15 – during a raid on a resistance sentry camp near Sakarpin village in Mandalay Region’s Madaya Township, the Madaya Township People’s Defense Group told local media.

Three resistance fighters and five civilians who were detained and killed by junta forces in Madaya Township, Mandalay Region on Monday. / Khit Thit Media

Junta propaganda Telegram channels reported that the people were dead when junta troops clashed with them. They said military security forces found the eight bodies during an attack on PDF forces stationed at a monastery near the village.

Photos taken by local residents show all eight victims had their arms tied behind their backs.

Six more civilians – including three senior citizens aged 62 and 75, a three-year-old boy and a woman who was five-months pregnant – were killed by regime forces and allied pro-regime Pyu Saw Htee militia members from a junta military base in Myin See village in Sagaing Region’s Shwebo Township on Feb. 15 and 16.

All the victims were killed while they were in huts near their farms in the township, a member of the Shwebo Township Defense Force told The Irrawaddy.

On Wednesday, a junta helicopter gunship used 81mm explosives and a machine gun to bomb and strafe three villages on the east bank of the Sittaung River in Bago Region’s Yedashe Township even though there was no fighting in the area, reports said.

During the attacks on residential areas, four people – including two children aged eight and 10 – were slain and five others were injured, the Yedashe Township PDF Daung Minn Thar said.

Three civilians who were killed by indiscriminate shelling on Kale town in Sagaing Region on Wednesday. /CJ

Photos show one child was hit by machine gun fire in the neck and the other in the head.

The country’s oldest ethnic revolutionary group, the Karen National Union, said that the junta continued artillery and airstrikes as well as drone strikes on civilian targets in villages in its territory in Bago Region’s Kyaukkyi Township and Mon State’s Ye Township, killing at least four people and injuring many others.

The junta attacks also destroyed many homes and schools and killed livestock, which are a vital source of income for residents of the villages.

On Monday, regime forces and allied Pa-O militia members used mortars and drones to bombard a convoy of internally displaced persons in southern Shan State’s Hsihseng town, killing seven civilians, the Pa-O National Liberation Army, an anti-regime ethnic revolutionary group, said.

Two civilians, including a six-month-old infant, were killed, and seven others injured in Hsihseng Township on Saturday as regime forces and a pro-junta Pa-O militia based in Ban Yin town shelled two nearby villages with more than 40 bombs.

A child among four killed in junta airstrikes on three villages in Yedashe Township, Bago Region on Wednesday. / Daung Minn Thar PDF

The bombs also destroyed civilian homes. The regime deliberately attacked civilian targets even though there were no clashes or PNLA bases in the villages, the ethnic army said.

On Feb. 14, a junta aircraft also bombed a small village in Hsihseng township five times, killing two residents and injuring eight more, the PNLA said, adding that no fighting was occurring in the area. Photos show civilian homes were destroyed.

As of Wednesday, 4,569 people – including pro-democracy activists and civilians – had been killed by regime forces since the Feb 1, 2021 coup, according to data compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Irrawaddy News

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Sep 1 to 7, 2024 Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in the Sagaing Region, Mandalay Region, Magway Region, and Shan State from September 1st to 7th. The Military Junta threatened that they would launch airstrikes on the townships which they lost. The […]

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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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