A pre-dawn raid on a village in Sagaing Region’s Ye-U Township left five members of an anti-regime police force dead on Saturday, according to a local resistance leader.
The village of Phalangon, located less than 10km northwest of the town of Ye-U, came under attack from a column of roughly 130 junta soldiers at around 4am, the leader of the township’s defence team told Myanmar Now.
“They approached us stealthily, avoiding villages and coming through the woods. We were already up and had done our morning exercises, but not everyone had their weapons ready,” he said.
While members of the defence team were able to fire back at their attackers and escape, others staying in a different building and belonging to the People’s Security Team (PST)—which serves as the police force in areas under resistance control—were caught unprepared, he added.
The charred remains of the dead PST officers were found when the resistance forces returned to the village on Monday, according to the defence team leader.
“The bodies were surrounded by motorcycles and set on fire. There wasn’t much left of them,” he said.
The column that carried out the attack reportedly raided several other villages in Ye-u over the weekend before arriving in neighbouring Khin-U Township on Monday.
The two townships are separated by the Muu River, and both have seen heavy fighting in the two years since the military seized power in February 2021, igniting an anti-coup resistance movement that has shown no signs of abating.
In May of last year, regime forces killed dozens of civilians in a massacre centred on the village of Mone Taing Pin, located about 10km northeast of Phalangon.
Since then, junta convoys travelling on the Khin-U-Ye-U road have continued to come under attack from resistance forces, while regime troops regularly carry out raids on local villages.
On January 13 and 14, a column of some 80 soldiers destroyed hundreds of houses and other buildings in several Ye-U villages, including a historic church in the predominantly Catholic village of Chan Thar, before crossing over to Khin-U The following day.
Late last year, junta forces were accused of killing eight civilians during a raid on the Khin-U Township village of Ah Lel Sho.
Ye-U and Khin-U are among 14 townships in Sagaing Region that were placed under martial law last month.
