Aung Zay

Thousands flee as Myanmar junta intensifies attacks on villages south of Naypyitaw

Junta attacks have forced more than 4,000 people to flee their homes in Bago Region’s Yedashe Township since late last week, according to sources in the area just 50 miles south of Naypyitaw. The attacks began last Friday, after a clash with local resistance forces the day before reportedly left dozens of junta soldiers dead. Since then, residents of at least eight villages east of the Sittaung River have fled to escape airstrikes and shelling by troops stationed in Swar, a town near Bago Region’s border with the Naypyitaw Union Territory. “The junta army has destroyed some of the villages with their heavy weapons. We can’t live in them anymore,” said one local woman who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity. At least three of the villages—Na Kyat, Inn Gyi Pauk, and Si Paing—are now completely empty, according to local relief workers. Last Thursday’s clashes took place near Pi Tauk Kone, a village about nine miles east of the town of Swar, and involved around 150 junta troops and a number of local People’s Defence Force (PDF) groups. Three members of one PDF unit, the Pawani Column, were killed during the fighting and eight others were injured, the…