One political prisoner was killed and another critically injured when a resistance group ambushed a junta convoy transferring the inmates out of Monywa Prison in Sagaing Region on Tuesday.
The trucks were transporting around 100 detainees to prisons in Myingyan and Mandalay when they came under attack, according to an officer in a Monywa-based guerrilla force. He identified the deceased prisoner as 33-year-old Dr Zau Htoi Awng.
“Around four were injured and the doctor died. Another prisoner who had his foot cuffed to the doctor is bleeding out, too,” he told Myanmar Now.
This man was identified by another Monywa-based source as Arkar Nyein Chan, serving a 12-year sentence for terrorism.
One police officer was reportedly also killed and another injured, he added.
A family member and two Monywa locals confirmed Zau Htoi Awng’s death. The doctor had taken part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and anti-junta protests, and had also founded the Chindwin Medical Network and ran a mobile clinic operating in the conflict-torn Sagaing townships of Kani, Yinmabin and Mingin.
He was charged with terrorism after his arrest on September 25, 2021 and later handed a 10-year sentence, according to the local monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
A friend of the deceased said that the resistance groups that intercepted the convoy knew it would be carrying prisoners, and had obtained intel around the identities of some of those en route. The anti-junta forces had warned one another not to use explosives in the attack, to avoid harming the detainees.
Also within the convoy were reportedly trucks carrying copper from the Letpadaung mining project in Sagaing’s Salingyi Township.
