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Eight Children Among Civilians Killed on Sunday as Myanmar Military Bombs Ethnic Villages

January 8, 2024/in News

The first of the 250-pound bombs to hit the ethnic Chin village on Sunday morning landed near the church where residents of many of the more than 2,000 homes in the village were worshipping, officials said. After the last bomb exploded in Kanan, at least 17 people, including six children, had been killed. The village […]

19 civilians massacred by junta forces in Sagaing region

January 8, 2024/in News

Military junta soldiers massacred 19 civilians in two townships in northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region after detaining them, residents said, in the latest slaughter of civilians in the country’s nearly three-year civil war. Piles of corpses of all 19 people were discovered on Sunday near the Five Mile bus terminal located at the convergence of Kawlin, […]

Eight Children Among Civilians Killed on Sunday as Myanmar Military Bombs Ethnic Villages

January 8, 2024/in News

19 civilians massacred by junta forces in Sagaing region

January 8, 2024/in News

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Eight Children Among Civilians Killed on Sunday as Myanmar Military Bombs Ethnic Villages

January 8, 2024/in News

After the last bomb exploded in Kanan, at least 17 people, including six children, had been killed.

The village in western Sagaing Region near the border with India is separated from Khampat town by a creek. The town has been under the control of the People’s Defense Forces since November.

Six children – two under the age of 10 and four between 10 and 16 years old – were among the 17 people killed by the 250-pound bombs dropped on the village, according to the Tamu Township Board of Education.

The village in western Sagaing Region near the border with India is separated from Khampat town by a creek. The town has been under the control of the People’s Defense Forces since November.

About 30 more people were wounded.

Four bombs hit the compound of the village school, a board spokesperson said, explaining that they followed the first bomb that landed near the church.

“It was the first Sunday of the New Year so they were at church. They ran in panic before the second bomb was dropped. It landed amid civilian homes and caused many casualties,” the spokesperson told The Irrawaddy.

He called on the international community to act as soon as possible, saying Myanmar’s military was committing “genocide.”

In December, a junta general told leaders of ethnic groups at peace talks in China that Myanmar jets would continue to bomb ethnic areas the junta’s military had lost control of.

Salia Lian Pi, a spokesperson for the Chin National Organization of the Upper Chindwin Region, said about eight homes in the village were destroyed by the bombs.

The injured have not been allowed to enter Kalay town for treatment, Salia Lian Pi said. The head of Kalay Town Regional Operation Command is not allowing them to enter the town, he quoted local residents as saying. They are receiving treatment at two sites that lack the medicine and medical equipment required to care for them, Salai Lian Pi told The Irrawaddy.

The junta also bombed an ethnic T’ang village on Sunday.

Two children were among the six people killed when a 500-pound bomb hit Myo Thit village at about 3 p.m., according to the Ta’ang Women’s Organization. The village is located in northern Shan State’s Namhsan Township.

The Ta’ang Women’s Organization said no fighting had taken place in the area recently. The two children killed were brothers. They were the sons of a teacher who was also killed in the blast, the organization said. Three other residents of the village were also killed in the explosion, it said.

People have been fleeing the village since the 500-pound bomb was dropped on it, the organization said.

Irrawaddy News

19 civilians massacred by junta forces in Sagaing region

January 8, 2024/in News

Piles of corpses of all 19 people were discovered on Sunday near the Five Mile bus terminal located at the convergence of Kawlin, Wuntho and Pinlebu townships, local residents told Radio Free Asia.

The dead had lived in Wuntho township and Kawlin township, both of which had been seized by anti-regime People’s Defense Forces, or PDFs, made up of ordinary people who have taken up arms against the junta, which took control of the country in a February 2021 coup d’etat.

Junta soldiers, already pushed back by recent advances by rebel groups, have resorted to brutality to stop residents from providing support to the PDF, residents said.

The military column that killed the civilians was headed from Paungbyin township to Kawlin and Wuntho townships, resistance forces and residents said.

They were found dead on the night of Jan. 5, the same day of their arrest, residents said, though Radio Free Asia has not yet been able to confirm the deaths with the ruling military council.

Displaced civilians from Kawlin township in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region are seen Nov. 2, 2023. (Kawlin Info)

The shadow National Unity Government has been operating Kawlin township’s administrative, legislative and commercial sectors since resistance forces captured the township on Dec. 3, 2023.

In coordination with Operation 1027, a series of defensive attacks by an alliance of three ethnic armies in northern Shan state launched on Oct. 27, joint forces comprising the Kachin Independence Army and local PDFs have captured Kawlin, Mawlu, Khampat and Shwepyiaye towns in Sagaing region.

Signs of atrocities

The bodies of five residents from Kawlin, whose hands and feet were tied, were collected and buried on Sunday, according to an official from the local PDF.

The bodies were those of a father and two sons, female rice merchant Khin Sein, and driver Tun Phaw Hlaing, he said. The adults were between the ages of 30 and 50.

“One of the five bodies we took away yesterday had been shot many times in the abdomen very closely,” said the official who declined to be named to ensure his safety. “Another body was found with serious injury to the head.”

Some 5.56-millimeter cartridges made by Myanmar’s military defense industry were found near the bodies, he said.

RFA could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun or Sai Nai Nai Kyaw, the spokesperson for Sagaing’s ethnic affairs minister, for the comment on the massacre.

Junta forces attacked civilians in Kawlin and Wuntho townships to try to recapture Kawlin township from the local PDF, said a Wuntho resident on condition of anonymity.

“They have threatened the locals with killing possible informants of the resistance forces when they advanced on Kawlin,” the person said.

Civilians displaced by fighting in Myanmar are seen on the move in Salingyi township, Sagaing region, Nov. 26, 2023. (RFA)

Kyaw Win, the UK-based executive director of the Burma Human Rights Network, said the mass killings of civilians is a war crime and a crime against humanity.

“Military troops have also committed similar crimes across the country,” he said.

Women and children

Deadly attacks by junta soldiers have taken their toll on civilian women and children in Myanmar.

In December alone, nearly 40 women and children lost their lives, with most killed by airstrikes, artillery shells and gunshots, according to the Burmese Women’s Union.

Of the 33 women killed, 22 had been arrested by the military junta, the women’s rights umbrella organization said. The women who died in the attacks included six in Sagaing region, six in Rakhine state, four in Mandalay region, two in Mon state, three in Magway, four in Bago region, four in Shan state, three in Kayin state and one in Chin state.

“A total of 15 women died during bombardments in December, 17 women were killed by artillery shelling, and one died from a gunshot,” said Wai Wai Myint, an official from the Burmese Women’s Union.

Six children between the ages of 1 and 7 years old died in airstrikes by junta forces, including three in Sagaing’s Paungbyin town, one in the region’s Pale township, and two in Nyaunglebin township in Bago region.

Aye Myint Aung Aung, a leading member of the Women Alliance Burma, a group that emerged from protests following the 2021 coup, said women and children are not safe in conflict-torn areas of Myanmar.

“The military council will show no mercy to any civilians, and has targeted them,” she told RFA. “Along routes [traveled by] military columns, they raped and killed women. These soldiers did not even have compassion for the children.”

RFA could not reach a spokesman for the junta for comment on women and children casualties.

In all of 2023, nearly 400 women were killed and over 540 were arrested by the military council, according to the Burmese Women’s Unions.

RFA News

Spring Revolution

Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 8 to 14, 2024)September 20, 2024 - 2:30 pm
Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Sep 8 to 14, 2024 Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in the Magway Region, Shan State, Kachin State, and Rakhine State from September 8th to 14th. Military Junta arrested the civilians as human shields from Mindon Township, Magway Region, and Salingyi Township, […]
Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 1 to 7, 2024)September 13, 2024 - 5:08 pm
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 […]
Human Rights Situation weekly update (Aug 22 to 31, 2024)September 7, 2024 - 4:09 pm
Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 22 to 31, 2024 Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in the Sagaing Region, Magway Region, Bago Region, Mandalay Region, Tanintharyi Region, and Shan State from August 22nd to 31st. Head of Prison which works under Military Junta, tortured and blackmailed 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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