Troops belonging to the military council destroyed a gravesite for civilians killed by their regime in Bago, according to locals.
Three trucks carrying soldiers came to the Sinphyukin cemetery on Monday morning and began desecrating the graves, a local told Myanmar Now on the condition of anonymity.
Locals had buried around 12 fallen protesters together and created a monument at the shared gravesite. It featured the names and ages of the deceased, and described each of them as a “Spring Revolution Hero.”
The eyewitness told Myanmar Now on Monday afternoon that the bodies that had been dug up by the troops were left above ground.
“The graves are recent, only since early April, I’d say. The corpses are still decomposing and it just smells so bad,” a local who witnessed the raid on the cemetery said.
“They’re raiding the graves and taking out the bodies. They said they would put the bodies into separate graves because these graves are ‘illegal.’ I don’t know what law they are referring to,” he said.
On Sunday, the junta’s council called 17 Bago-based charity groups to a meeting in an attempt to pressure them to dismantle the shared gravesite at the Sinphyukin cemetery.
The military council described this practice as violating municipal law and reportedly ordered the charity groups to re-bury the murdered protesters separately.
By late afternoon, the troops had re-buried the 12 bodies in separate, unmarked graves, the Bago local said.
The monument marking the gravesite was also reportedly destroyed by the troops, he added.
On April 9 alone, the junta’s armed forces killed some 82 people in Bago in a violent suppression of protests, Myanmar Now reported. Further information on the murders is still being compiled.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, as of April 17, more than 730 civilians have been murdered nationwide by the regime since the February 1 coup.
