Residents and internally displaced persons in Myanmar’s war-torn Kayah state are facing a humanitarian emergency as junta forces confiscate food and medicine at dozens of security checkpoints along major land routes in the southeastern state as fighting there intensifies, local sources said
Myanmar’s junta has focused much of its military firepower on Kayin state, carrying out 57 airstrikes on two key areas in January alone, highlighting the strategic importance of the area bordering Thailand rife with armed resistance groups and political opponents in hiding.
A rapid expansion in illegal gold mining since the military coup is poisoning the water supply in Myanmar’s Kachin state and destroying the livelihoods of residents who say the ethnic Kachin group that administers the region has failed to police the sector.
Ethnic Chin soldiers claim to have taken control of nearly all of Thantlang township in Chin state, in western Myanmar near India, despite the junta’s recent declaration of martial law in the area, but residents who fled fighting say they cannot return home amid the risk of military airstrikes.
More than 2,000 villagers in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region fled ahead of two days of junta raids, the Kyunhla-Kanbalu Activists Group told RFA on Tuesday.
At least 363 women killed by the junta in the two years since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).
Junta leaders placed Myanmar under six more months of emergency rule on Wednesday, the second anniversary of their ouster of the civilian government in a coup, citing ongoing resistance to army rule, junta-controlled media reported.r
Myanmar’s top military leaders dropped hints on Tuesday, the eve of the second anniversary of their overthrow of the civilian government, that they may extend emergency rule, declaring an “extraordinary situation” in light of ongoing resistance to junta rule.
Junta troops have beaten two men and a teenage boy to death after arresting them at a checkpoint in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, according to locals citing sources close to the military.
Around 10,000 villagers in two townships have abandoned their homes as junta troops continued scorched earth operations in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, locals told RFA.