Junta forces kill seven civilians during retreat from Thayetchaung

Junta soldiers took more than a dozen civilians hostage and ultimately killed seven last week after losing a battle to the Karen National Liberation Army and its allies in Tanintharyi Region’s Thayetchaung Township, locals and anti-junta fighters said. The troops withdrew from Win Wa village, Thayetchaung Township, where they had lost control of the village police station. According to residents of the township, they were reportedly retreating through the village of Gon Hnyin Seik four and a half miles west of Win Wa when they took seven of the village’s residents captive to serve them as guides. Gon Hnyin Seik villagers said they found the bodies of three men and four women that the soldiers had detained on a rubber plantation last Friday morning. “They were ordinary civilians. The troops forced them into acting as guides, seized their belongings, and then killed them,” a man from Gon Hnyin Seik said. “What kind of law is this? What kind of government allows such actions?” Detailed information about the victims and the time of death remains unconfirmed due to poor internet and phone connections amid ongoing clashes in the Thayetchaung area. An alliance of People’s Defence Force (PDF), People’s Defence Team (PDT), and Karen National Liberation Army fighters forced the junta troops out of the Win Wa police station south of Thayetchaung last Wednesday after a month of continuous assaults on the station. The retreating soldiers reportedly also forced five men from the village of Chaung Wa Pyin, around four miles north of Win Wa, to serve them as guides shortly after fleeing the station. “They captured some people they came across in Chaung Wa Pyin village,” an anti-junta fighter in the area said. Residents of villages near Chaung Wa Pyin have also reportedly gone missing, with neighbours suspecting they were abducted by the retreating junta troops. Civilians in the area said the junta forces had been behaving ruthlessly towards them for weeks. In the last week of February, soldiers marching with two reinforcement columns sent south from battalion bases in Kaleinaung in Tanintharyi Region’s Yebyu Township reportedly killed seven civilians in Son Sin Hpyar village south of Thayetchaung. In a statement released on Sunday, the Karen National Union—the ethnic national organisation for which the KNLA serves as an armed wing—also claimed junta forces in the area had killed dozens of civilians. A woman from Gon Hnyin Seik Village was killed in a fighter jet airstrike on March 14 (Photo: KNU) A civilian woman from Gon Hnyin Seik also died over the weekend, and a monastery was damaged, during a series of junta airstrikes and shelling from warships near the Dawei River estuary, according to another KNU statement.However, KNLA and resistance fighters pursuing junta troops supposedly killed seven soldiers as well as capturing ammunition and several junta firearms. Myanmar Now sent queries about the effects of recent battles on civilians to the KNU’s Brigade 4—the subdivision of the organisation operating in Tanintharyi Region—but has not received a response. Firearms and ammunition seized after clashes with retreating junta troops on March 14 (Photo: KNU) Fighting in the area has forced hundreds of civilians in the area to flee, according to the resistance fighter who spoke with Myanmar Now. “Most villagers have long fled to escape the clashes, but a few still remain,” he said. As the KNLA and its allies in the PDF conducted clearing operations in Thayetchaung Township after the capture of Win Wa base, clashes have broken out sporadically with junta troops, who remain hidden in the area’s mangrove swamps and rubber plantations. As of Monday morning, the Myanmar military regime has not released any public statements about the recent clashes in Tanintharyi Region. The fighting has escalated since the junta held closely managed general elections in December and January and subsequently intensified airstrikes and sent troops to multiple fronts, including in Tanintharyi Region, to recapture territory previously lost to anti-junta forces.

Junta forces kill seven civilians during retreat from Thayetchaung

Army troops had lost control of a village police station to Karen anti-junta fighters and their allies in Myanmar’s south and were withdrawing from the area when they committed the killings

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