A column of around 150 junta soldiers burned down two of a resistance group’s bases in Sagaing Region on Saturday, with anti-junta guerrillas only narrowly escaping the assault.
Members of the Hero Tiger Force in Yinmabin Township were laying explosives around the bases at around 7:30am when the junta column attacked from the northeast, which was unprotected by mines.
The guerrillas had received intel that the soldiers would attack from the west and were taken off guard.
“We surrounded our bases with minefields but they came from the only side we missed,” said Kyar Kyi, the group’s leader. “We barely managed to escape alive. They fired five heavy artillery shells and also fired around 200 gunshots non-stop.”
The first base to be attacked was a training field used by the group that sits at the junction of roads leading to several villages: Pauk Pan Phyu, Yone Lay Pin, Nat Daunt, and Kone. The soldiers attacked from the direction of Nat Daunt, Kyar Kyi said.
“After they had torched the base, they continued to torch the one near Kone village. All our scarce supplies are gone now,” he said, adding that motorcycles, rice and cooking pots were among the items destroyed.
The bases were located three miles from the nearest village and no one was arrested or hurt during the raids, he added: “They didn’t target the villages this time. They were specifically targeting our bases.”
Although their villages were not attacked, residents have fled from Pauk Pan Phyu, Yone Lay Pin, and Nat Daung, which each have 200 households, as well as from Kone, which has 1,000. Thousands of other people in the area have been displaced by junta raids since late last month.
Soldiers have stationed themselves inside Kone and set up heavy weaponry at the local monastery, Kyar Kyi said.
