A fierce clash between junta troops and resistance forces in northern Sagaing Region’s Kawlin Township on Wednesday led to casualties on both sides, according to local sources.
The Kawlin People’s Defence Force (PDF) and People’s Defence Team—known by the Burmese acronym Pa Ka Pha—surrounded a 70-soldier Myanmar military column overnight on Tuesday after the troops raided the village of Ywar Haung, three miles from Kawlin town.
Resistance forces attacked the soldiers at 4am and a three-hour battle ensued, a PDF member said, estimating that seven Myanmar army troops were killed.
“[The military] burned the bodies [of their fallen soldiers] in Ywar Haung. They did it to hide the remains—we found pieces of their clothes,” he told Myanmar Now.
He added that one member of the resistance alliance was killed and five were injured, but not critically.
Thirteen of Ywar Haung’s 80 households were reportedly burned down by the occupying Myanmar army on Tuesday. The same column then struck the village of Thae Kaw and set fire to 40 more homes, leading to another shootout with resistance forces which lasted the rest of the day. On Thursday, they targeted a third community—Thi Par—two miles from Kawlin town.
While no fighting occurred in Thi Par, resistance forces used an improvised 40mm grenade launcher to open fire on a junta administrative office in the town of Kawlin serving as a makeshift military camp in Kawlin. The troops shot back with heavy and light weapons, but caused no casualties, according to a Pa Ka Pha member who participated in the attack
“No one in our group was harmed. We fired at them to our hearts’ content and then we retreated easily,” he told Myanmar Now.
On Wednesday, in southern Sagaing Region’s township by the same name, 50 Myanmar army soldiers from Light Infantry Division 33 set fire to two villages along the western banks of the Ayeyarwady River: Myin Se and Thone Lint.
Residents from the two communities, as well as five other nearby villages, fled the attacks. One elderly woman in Myin Se was reportedly killed and some 90 homes were burned. The extent of the damage to Thone Lint was not confirmed at the time of reporting, but the entire western section of the community was said to have been torched.
“They will destroy the areas they can’t control,” a Sagaing Township local told Myanmar Now, noting that while the area remains a resistance stronghold, there had not been any recent clashes near the targeted villages.
During the advance, the junta soldiers dropped at least two bombs from drones on the area on Tuesday, and also fired heavy artillery at the communities.
Local anti-junta defence forces did not arrive in time to stop the assault in Myin Se, but fired heavy artillery at an area police station “to make the military column turn back,” a resistance fighter from nearby Myinmu Township said, adding that he did not know if they had inflicted any casualties.
The Myanmar army has been forcing its way through Sagaing Township since December 10, following a clash with resistance forces near Nyaung Ngoke To village. The military set fire to five villages in the days that followed, burning more than 720 homes.
On December 23, they torched 90 more homes in three more Sagaing Township communities: Thein Chaung, Htan Taw Kone and Gu Gyi Kone.
