Burned bodies found after Myanmar army arson attack on Sagaing Region village

A group of resistance fighters said they had discovered four charred bodies in Shwebo Township, Sagaing this week in a village that army troops had briefly occupied and torched in the previous few days. Members of the Shwebo Township People's Defense Organisation (PDO)—locally known as the Shwebo Pa Ka Pha—said the junta troops advanced into Tha Pyay Thar villag some two miles west of Shwebo on Saturday, then withdrew on Monday. The following day, when the local resistance group entered the village to examine the damage and check for weapons or soldiers left behind, they found the charred bodies of four men in a burned building in the village’s centre, according to a resistance fighter who was present. “They were burned together in one place. There were no knife wounds or bullet wounds. It looked like they were burned alive. The bodies were severely disfigured,” he said. Photos seen by Myanmar Now show four partially burned bodies, apparently male, lying together under the zinc roof of a torched building. At least two of the bodies in the photos have cloth blindfolds wrapped over their eyes, and one has a length of rope tied around the neck. A Shwebo Township PDO officer said the deceased men appeared to be in their 30s and were most likely civilians, since they were not known to belong to any armed resistance groups. “We in the resistance forces know who everyone is,” he said, noting that all resistance organisations operating in the area are acquainted with each other’s members. “These men weren’t from our resistance groups.” Bodies discovered in Tha Pyay Thar village Residents of Tha Pyay Thar have not reported anyone missing, which suggests that the victims were not locals, and their identities remain unconfirmed, according to a statement released by the township PDO. Considering Tha Pyay Thar’s location on the main road from Shwebo to Ye-U, the victims may have been travellers or hostages captured by the junta troops from elsewhere, resistance members said. The troops that raided and occupied Tha Pyay Thar comprised two columns: one made up of forces based in Shwebo’s urban centre and another including members of the junta-trained Pyu Saw Htee militia based in small villages to the west of the city. On the first day of the raid, the Township PDO and allied resistance groups attacked the troops, resulting in at least one casualty on the junta side and injuries to two resistance fighters, according to the PDO. Fighting also occurred over the next few days and the troops’ occupation of the village continued. The occupying junta and Pyu Saw Htee forces repeatedly set fire to houses and other structures in the village, according to resistance forces, destroying around 150 of more than 180 houses in Tha Pyay Thar, according to resistance forces. “They didn't just burn everything at once. They carried away whatever items they wanted in the houses again and again, and only after taking what they wanted did they burn the empty houses,” a PDO member said. When asked for comment about the situation in Tha Pyay Thar village, the junta’s Sagaing Region spokesperson and minister for social affairs Nyunt Win Aung said on December 12 that he could not respond as he was attending a national sports festival in Naypyitaw. In the second week of September, eight civilians were killed when the army raided the nearby village of Hta Naung Wun. Six of those killed were not residents of the village but hostages the troops had brought with them. The victims’ bodies in Hta Naung Wun reportedly showed signs of torture. Resistance forces said the junta is only able to operate in villages near Shwebo, since resistance forces maintain a strong presence in the more rural areas of the township. In late October, resistance forces attacked another column of junta troops south of Shwebo while they were trying to convey supplies to the village of Pa Laing, forcing them to retreat to the city, resistance members said. Shwebo Township, which is between the Mu and Ayeyarwady rivers, shares borders with Khin-U, Ye-U, Depayin, Ayadaw, and Wetlet townships, is also located opposite the town of Singu, Mandalay Region on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady, which resistance forces captured from the junta earlier this year. According to data published in November by the monitoring group Data For Myanmar, more than 100,000 homes had been destroyed in arson attacks by the military and allied forces the three years and nine months since they seized power in a coup. Sagaing Region has borne the brunt of this destruction, with more than 73,000 homes burned down. At least four people were found to have been killed and more than 150 houses were burned by junta troops in Tha Pyay Thar village, Shwebo Township over two days (Photo - Shwebo PDO)

Burned bodies found after Myanmar army arson attack on Sagaing Region village

After junta troops set fires in a village near Shwebo, Sagaing Region, resistance groups said they found the bodies of four men apparently burned alive in a torched building

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