Junta troops who occupied a village in Sagaing Region’s Salingyi Township on Monday killed five villagers and abducted at least 20 more, according to local sources.
The bodies of the five victims were discovered on Tuesday in the neighbouring villages of Yae Mein Taung and Yae Mein Myauk, a resistance source told Myanmar Now.
“Two of them were missing half their skulls because they had been shot in the head. They also had wounds near their necks,” said a member of the Salingyi People’s Defence Force (PDF).
The two victims, identified as Chit Shwe, 70, and Aung Moe, 45, were found in the western part of Yae Mein Taung, while two others were discovered in a shallow grave in the southwestern part of the village, he added.
The fifth victim, identified as Aung Khine, 47, was found in Yae Mein Myauk, located less than 1km to the north.
According to locals, a military column of around 100 regime soldiers entered Yae Mein Taung on Monday, forcing most of its residents to flee. Those who did not escape were killed or are still being held, residents said.
The PDF member said that a cart belonging to Chit Shwe and Aung Moe was found near the two buried bodies. It was believed that the two men had returned to the village from a nearby forest without knowing that it was occupied.
“It looks like they stumbled upon the grave where the two other villagers were buried when they came back from the woods,” the PDF member said, adding that the two buried villagers had still not been identified.
Myanmar Now attempted to contact Salingyi’s central police station for information regarding the killings, but did not receive any response.
Myanmar’s military junta routinely denies targeting civilians in its ongoing offensives against anti-regime forces, despite almost daily reports of indiscriminate killing by junta troops.
