Intense fighting between the military and anti-junta forces in Myanmar’s Chin and Shan states since the weekend left 19 dead, including four civilians, RFA Burmese has learned.
In Myanmar, junta troops aren’t just terrorizing villages and committing atrocities – they’re looting and destroying historical sites and cultural artifacts, villagers say.
A well-known writer and social activist was arrested at a military junta checkpoint on Tuesday while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to victims of the recent cyclone that devastated the region.
Civilian deaths are growing in Myanmar’s civil war amid a jump in airstrikes by the military junta, whose ground forces have faced stiff resistance from rebels and ordinary citizens who have taken up arms.
In the past six months, in addition to their increased targeting of civilians as part of its “four-cuts” strategy–denying the opposition access to food, finances, intelligence and recruits–the Myanmar military has made a concerted effort to target the shadow National Unity Government’s nascent civil administration and the provision of health and education.
Intense fighting has caused the number of internally displaced persons in Myanmar to grow by more than 680,000 between January and April 20, according to independent research group ISP-Myanmar.
According to the independent research group Data For Myanmar, since the military coup, more than 3,700 houses in Khin-U have been burned down as of February and nearly 48,000 houses in Sagaing region as of mid-March.
A military airstrike last week on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region where an earlier attack killed nearly 200 people was part of a bid to “destroy evidence,” a member of the armed opposition said Monday, as reports emerged that the latest bombing killed nearly 20 of the junta’s own troops.
Myanmar’s military has faced stiff resistance from ordinary men and women who have taken up arms to form People’s Defense Force bands to fight junta troops since the military’s coup two years ago. The Ogres’ atrocities are meant to terrorize their foes, who often have little combat training and aren’t usually well-armed.
Authorities in Myanmar have arrested a journalist and three celebrities who criticized the junta’s bombing of a village in Sagaing region that killed 200 people, including children, a source with knowledge of the country’s legal system said Friday.