The Chin Brotherhood alliance seized the Myanmar military’s only remaining hilltop base in the town of Falam, Chin State on Monday night after five months of clashes, the anti-junta fighters claimed.
By seizing the base, which belonged to the army’s Infantry Battalion (IB) 268, the Chin Brotherhood has gained full control over the town of Falam in northern Chin State, according to sources within the group and local civilians.
The alliance launched an offensive campaign on November 9 of last year to capture Falam, and has taken over key locations in the township such as a district-level police station, a township-level General Administration Office, and various junta outposts in the months since.
However, junta troops manning the IB 268 base in Falam were able to hold their heavily fortified position and fend off the Chin Brotherhood’s capture of the base until this week.
The Chin Brotherhood and military captured dozens of prisoners of war during the five-month campaign for Falam, and there were significant casualties for both belligerent forces, but exact figures are not yet available.
Clearance operations are ongoing in Falam and surrounding areas, according to a Chin Brotherhood official who promised on Monday to disclose further information about the town’s capture soon.
“We intend to release the details either tomorrow or the day after. Currently, we are still carrying out clearance operations,” he said.
Falam Township, which had a population of just over 40,000 in 2014 according to the census conducted that year, is on an important commercial route and shares a border with the Indian state of Mizoram.
During the Chin Brotherhood offensive, the Myanmar military tried to hold Falam, which is located some 40 miles from its headquarters in the Chin State capital of Hakha, by sending in reinforcements and air support for its ground troops on several occasions.
“They feared losing key cities like Hakha and Kalay if Falam fell, so they repeatedly airlifted reinforcements in from distant areas. The fight for Falam lasted for almost six months because of these reinforcements,” said Captain Zin Yaw, a defector from the military.
Zin Yaw also noted that the capture of Falam Town by anti-junta forces will compromise the land route between Hakha and Kalay, Sagaing Region, the location of the military’s Regional Operations Command (ROC) headquarters, one of seven such command centres in the country.
“There is no longer a land route connecting Hakha and Falam,” Zin Yaw said. “The resistance forces have now reached a point where they can establish positions in Falam and launch attacks on either the state capital of Hakha or the ROC in Kalay.”
“Hakha and Kalay are now in a vulnerable position for the military council,” he added.
Amid the fighting, over 10,000 residents of Falam Township reportedly fled their homes, mostly to villages away from the town, to Kalay and other parts of Sagaing Region, to Yangon, and over the international border to Mizoram.
Myanmar Now attempted to reach Aung Cho, the junta’s secretary and spokesperson for Chin State, for comment on the situation in Falam but did not receive a response.
The Chin Brotherhood alliance is entirely made up of anti-junta armed groups established since Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, including the Chin National Organization/CNDF (CNO/CNDF), Chinland Defence Force-Mindat (CDF Mindat), Kanpetlet CDF, Zomi Federal Union/People’s Defence Force-Zoland (ZFU/PDF-Zoland), and CDF Matupi, Brigade 1.
Following the capture of the IB 268 base, the alliance controls four of Chin State’s nine townships—Matupi, Mindat, Kanpetlet, and Falam—while its powerful ally the Arakan Army controls Paletwa Township on the Rakhine State line.
Fighters for the Chinland Council, another anti-junta alliance led by the veteran ethnic armed organisation Chin National Army and its political wing, the Chin National Front, took control of the town of Tonzang in Falam District.
With anti-junta forces now in control of more than 80 percent of the Chin Hills, the Myanmar military’s dominance is effectively confined to Hakha and the towns of Thantlang and Tedim.
In mid-March, the monitoring group Institute of Chin Affairs (ICA) estimated that, out of an approximate population of 500,000 based on the most recent census in 2014, some 120,000 people have been displaced in Chin State and 45,000 have fled to Mizoram as refugees.
According to the ICA’s count as of February 1 of this year, junta airstrikes have killed 249 people in Chin State, injured more than 400, and destroyed some 1,200 homes and 39 religious buildings in the four years since the 2021 coup.
