After clashing with anti-junta forces in Khin-U Township, Sagaing Region, Myanmar army troops burned the bodies of their slain comrades in a civilian house, local residents and resistance groups said.
Resistance fighters intercepted a column of around 100 troops last Thursday when it entered Laung Shey village, located one mile south of Khin-U, according to Bo Nat Soe, a spokesperson for the Khin-U People’s Defence Team (Khin-U PDT).
“We attacked the column as it arrived in Laung Shey from Khin-U. Two of them died. Those two were later burned in a house in the middle of the village. We discovered the bodies afterwards,” Bo Nat Soe said.
The junta column had established a temporary base at a traditional medicine hospital in Ye-U, Sagaing Region, across the Mu River some 15 miles west of Khin-U. From this base, the column had launched assaults on nearby towns and villages in Ye-U, Depayin, Khin-U, and Shwebo townships.
The column had arrived in Khin-U on Wednesday, the day before advancing into Laung Shey and clashing with the Khin-U PDT. The column then spent the night in Laung Shey before proceeding two miles south to the village of Pauk Ton the next day.
Despite the short distance, the junta troops fought with resistance forces three times between their departure from Laung Shey and arrival in Pauk Ton, according to sources within the resistance groups that encountered the column. The number of casualties the junta forces incurred in these clashes remains unconfirmed.
The column is made up of troops from Light Infantry Battalion 701, based in Hmawbi, Yangon Region, and resistance sources speculated that it was moving towards the military training camp in Shwebo, Sagaing Region, on its way back to the Hmawbi base.
