Shelling and arson attacks by military reinforcement troops on the way to southern Chin State killed a child and one other civilian in Magway Region last week, according to local resistance groups.
The 12-year-old girl and the man, who was in his 40s, died on Friday when the junta forces shelled and set fire to the village of Yinke in Magway Region’s Saw Township on Friday, the resistance groups said.
“The girl was killed by a military artillery shell and the man asphyxiated from the smoke,” said a leader of the Saw Township people’s administration team.
Nearly all 300 houses in the village were destroyed by the military’s artillery and arson attacks, he added.
Locals also claim the military detained about 20 local residents who were trying to flee to safety, and that most of the displaced people had been unable to return home.
Posts on pro-junta propaganda channels on Telegram and several local media outlets claimed that five defence team members were killed and that the military seized several weapons in a battle near Yinke.
On a number of occasions, resistance forces based near the Chin State-Magway Region border have intercepted junta convoys carrying reinforcements from the town of Laung Shey, Saw Township to Kyin Dway and other destinations in Kanpetlet Township, southern Chin State. The convoys generally carry up to 300 troops at a time, according to local sources.
Kyin Dway, a town located to the south of Kanpetlet, Chin State, had a small population of around 1,500 as of 2020, according to public records. While only a few dozen junta troops were deployed to Kyin Dway before the coup, the military council has since sent an increasing number of police and military reinforcements to the town.
Around 120 soldiers and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia fighters are currently occupying Kyin Dway.
While the road from Laung Shey to Kyin Dway is only just over 30 miles long, the convoy of junta troops that has been assaulting villages was still in Saw Township as of Monday, according to resistance forces.
“They’ve been torching and raiding villages and trying to clear areas occupied by the resistance. We have been intercepting them repeatedly,” said a spokesperson for the Chin ethnic armed organisation Chinland Defence Force-Kanpetlet (CDF-Kanpetlet).
Another junta column of more than 150 troops left Kyaukhtu, Saw Township on July 15 and is also currently carrying out assaults in Saw Township. The column is still near the town of Saw and is likely to head towards Kanpetlet Township, according to CDF-Kanpetlet’s spokesperson.
In a similar incident a 30-vehicle junta convoy, moving reinforcements to Hakha in northern Chin State from Kalay in Sagaing Region, was ambushed and incapacitated by the Chin National Army in April. A junta convoy deployed to Kyin Dway and was similarly intercepted by resistance forces in February 2022.
Saw Township, located in Magway Region’s Yaw area, borders on southern Chin State’s Kanpetlet and Mindat townships. Thousands of locals from Yinke and more than 10 villages in the neighbouring Magway Region and Chin State townships have been displaced by junta attacks in the area and are in need of emergency shelter, food and medication, local sources said.
During a meeting in Naypyidaw on July 13, coup regime leader Min Aung Hlaing directed both military and pro-junta civilian leaders to “step up offensives” to regain full control of resistance-held areas in Sagaing Region and the Chin and Karenni (Kayah) states for the military regime.
