Most of the residents displaced from Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township have been unable to return to their homes despite a retreat on Monday by the junta’s armed forces, saying that the area continues to be too dangerous.
Before leaving the township, the troops carried out an intensive ground search for members of the Depayin People’s Defence Force (PDF) from Friday until Sunday in a 20-mile radius around Satpyarkyin village. The search came after soldiers entered the village on Friday, and were met with shots fired by the local resistance.
With the military deploying heavy weaponry and surveying surrounding forests looking for the PDF fighters, residents of 20 villages fled their homes. The most recently internally displaced persons (IDPs) include locals from Kyun Daw Gyi, Kyun Daw Lay, Ohn Ne Kyin, Ohn Tin, Chone Ywar and Bote Htan villages.
“We just couldn’t live here anymore since they even combed through the forests. We all had to leave our homes and wards to run to somewhere safer,” a Satpyarkyin resident said.
The IDPs said that they were facing hardships including insufficient shelter, food and healthcare access.
A woman in her 50s from Bote Htan village died on Sunday night, two days after being bitten by a snake which was believed to be poisonous while on the run from the military, another IDP said.
“We actually had planned on taking her body back to the village this morning but since the military was still combing through the village and there was no one to help us carry the body, we couldn’t,” a Bote Htan resident said on Monday.
PDF troops were forced to retreat from the battle near Satpyarkyin village on Friday morning due to the imbalance of weapons—they were armed only with handmade rifles.
Another battle broke out that afternoon, after the military occupied a monastery in the village of Kyun Kalay. The junta’s troops reportedly shot heavy arms, injuring several PDF members.
Eyewitnesses told Myanmar Now that the soldiers shot and killed injured persons who were attempting to flee the battle site.
“I had to leave my two injured comrades behind. I told one of them to stay put in a safe place and that I would come back for him, but he was shot in the head shortly after,” said a PDF member who fought in the battle.
Six of the bodies collected from around the Kyun Kalay village monastery appeared to have been killed by bullets shot at close range, according to the Depayin PDF.
One PDF member described it as “not a battle, but slaughter.”
The Depayin PDF said on Monday evening that the fighting in Satpyarkyin killed 26 of their members and injured more than 50.
Most of those killed were young people, including two fourth-year university students and three Grade 11 high school students, locals said.
The coup council released a statement on Sunday on the clash in Satpyarkyin, claiming the military was ambushed and that the battle that ensued had lasted 30 minutes, with no casualties on their side.
A Depayin PDF member told Myanmar Now that the battle was a setback for the local resistance force, but that they would regroup and continue to fight, but were in need of better support from the anti-coup National Unity Government (NUG), as well as more sophisticated arms.
“Those military dogs are even worse than the English or the Japanese back then,” the PDF member said, referring to the forces who fought in Myanmar in World War II. “For that reason alone, it should be clear that those of us on the frontlines can only hang on for so long without the support of the higher-ups. That’s why I would like to request that the NUG get us out of this vile system as quickly as possible.”
After two junta police were killed in Depayin Township on March 18, the military deployed troops to the villages of Thabyay Kone and Ti Taw, causing those residents, and those in the nearby villages of Oak Sel, Thayat Kan and Chaung Nee Toh to flee.
The military later accused the Yin Kye monastery, 10 miles south of Depayin, of providing training to local resistance fighters and raided the village on June 8, leading to a battle.
Five days later, two daughters of a local junta-allied administrator were killed in the village of Kyi, just two miles from Satpyarkyin, leading to military attacks on two area villages.
The shootout resulted in the death of 21-year-old Aung San of Bote village, who was shot in the chest, and 22-year-old Theik Htwe, who sustained severe injuries to his spine and pubic region.
