Anti-junta forces take control of southern Chin State’s Mindat town

Anti-regime forces took control of the southern Chin State town of Mindat this week after a month-long battle with Myanmar’s military, according to sources close to the coalition of ethnic Chin resistance groups that carried out the offensive. The alliance, known as the Chin Brothers, reportedly overwhelmed at least 10 junta outposts, including a police station, to capture the town. Starting in early November, the offensive was led by the Chinland Defense Force-Mindat (CDF-Mindat), sources affiliated with the group said. “The town is under CDF-Mindat’s control, but there’s one enemy base near the town where fighting is still taking place,” a source close to CDF-Mindat told Myanmar Now. There has been no official statement from the group regarding the seizure of the town, which comes just months after the Chin Brothers seized outposts in neighbouring Matupi Township in late June. Under military rule, Mindat has become a ghost town, with approximately 90 percent of its residents fleeing when the junta imposed martial law in May, 2021. Although some residents returned after fighting intermittently eased, the town has remained largely abandoned. Despite resistance groups now having full control of Mindat, clashes are continuing near the military’s Infantry Battalion 274 base, less than two miles west of the town. The base is the junta’s last stronghold in the township. In response to the offensive, the military regime carried out airstrikes on urban areas on Thursday morning, a local resident told Myanmar Now. “They resumed aerial bombing over the town just a week after the previous attacks. They also launched multiple missile attacks from a junta base in Kyaukhtu,” he said, referring to a town on the border with neighbouring Magway Region. The military regime also dropped food supplies and ammunition to the junta soldiers held up in the base this week, local sources said. In the eastern and western parts of Mindat, at least 200 homes have been damaged by junta arson attacks, shelling, and airstrikes. In late April, the alliance also captured Kyindwe, a strategically important town in Kanpetlet Township. The Chin National Army, the oldest ethnic Chin armed group fighting the regime, has seized a number of towns across Chin State since 2023, including Rikhawdar, Lailenpi, Rezua, and Tonzang.

Anti-junta forces take control of southern Chin State’s Mindat town

During the offensive, hundreds of homes were destroyed by junta shelling, arson, and airstrikes

Subscribe for full access

Case of Kani schoolteacher and family’s murder still unsolved

The Myanmar prisoner who regained his freedom—with a spoon

Cut off by conflict, farmers of the Chin Hills face mounting hardships

When ‘living becomes harder than dying’: The quiet crisis consuming Yangon

Case of Kani schoolteacher and family’s murder still unsolved

KNU seizes key Thai-Myanmar border town of Mawdaung

Myanmar junta troops torture, murder two civilians in Magway’s Myaing Township

Three executed for murder in MNDAA-controlled Mongko

Hong Kong-based company to resume work on electric power projects in Yangon

KIA set to fully resume rare earth mining in captured ‘special region’

Myanmar junta airstrikes kill three civilians sheltering in Rakhine State monastery

Myanmar’s factories cling to life as power shortages persist

Bought Out or Seized: Mandalay farmers face impossible choices amid land grab

Myanmar junta partners with Chinese firm to build natural gas terminal despite Rakhine State conflict

Thai officials call on Myanmar regime to crack down on fraud, trafficking gangs on Thai-Karen State border

Myanmar military continues to lose ground to anti-junta forces in northern Shan State

Despite escalating violence, Myanmar junta leader says elections will proceed

NUG-founded bank set to sell shares to meet ‘emergency needs’

Myanmar’s junta bears ‘sole responsibility’ for Suu Kyi’s health—NLD

Karenni youth fight for freedom at the cost of their lives and limbs

The mothers of the Magway resistance

A Myanmar artist finds freedom behind bars—by portraying prisoners’ oppression

As Myanmar’s revolution beckons, a new breed of activist photographers heeds the call

The man behind the Myanmar junta’s campaign of terror in Sagaing

Authorities tighten restrictions on passport process for Myanmar nationals in Thailand

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles