Junta troops have shot dead six people in a raid on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region, residents and People’s Defense Force officials told RFA Thursday.
They entered Monywa’s Yae Kan Su village on Wednesday morning, killing four anti-regime soldiers, two of them still in their teens.
Troops then shot dead two civilians as they tried to run away, according to locals.
Soe Gyi, acting battalion commander of Monywa District Defense Force Battalion-27 identified the dead members of his group as 20-year-old Khin Yadanar Oo, 18-year-old Zin Zin Soe, 17-year-old Ah Thay Lay, and a 24-year old known by the initials B.E.
He said a junta column with about 80 soldiers suddenly arrived in the village at dawn, taking his troops by surprise.
“[The camp] was raided when the patrol had withdrawn for physical training,” he said.
“Four PDF [People’s Defense Force] members were arrested, shot dead on the spot and burned.”
Defense force members fired back but then had to retreat due to lack of support and weapons, he said, adding that troops seized hand-made guns, bullets, communication equipment, uniforms and nine motorbikes.
Residents said troops killed a 50-year-old and an 18-year-old who tried to flee during the raid. They didn’t name the two men.
Pro-junta social media channels said troops killed five People’s Defense Force members, not four, and didn’t mention the civilians. They said the three men and two women were hiding in a village school.
The Telegram channels also confirmed reports that junta troops seized weapons and ammunition.
Locals said junta troops have raided five villages near Monywa in recent days, forcing around 2,000 people to flee Yae Kan Su village. The number driven out of the other four villages is not yet known.
Nearly 750,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes in Sagaing due to fighting since the Feb. 2021 coup, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
RFA’s calls to Sagaing region’s junta spokesperson and social affairs minister, Aing Hlang, went unanswered Thursday.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
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