Clashes have continued to break out in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township this week, with artillery shells fired by the military landing in Thai territory on Wednesday.
However, there were no injuries, locals said.
The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and its allies—including local People’s Defence Forces—have been fighting the military and its Border Guard Force (BGF) since Tuesday, forcing more than 600 Karen locals in Myawaddy’s Palu area to flee across the border to Thailand.
An artillery shell fired by the Myanmar military landed near a cattle farm in Thailand where the displaced people were taking shelter, one of the Karen displaced persons said.
“It did not explode. If it did, a lot of people would have died. It landed near the farm in the morning before noon,” they told Myanmar Now.
Rumors have been circulating that two displaced persons and a Thai soldier were injured in the shelling, but an eyewitness based in Mae Sot, opposite Myawaddy, said this information was false.
“It’s not true. I went and saw it myself, there were no injuries,” they said.
DKBA leader Maj-Gen Saw Kyaw Thet said that 32 Myanmar military soldiers were killed on the first day of clashes with the Karen forces in Palu.
He added that the DKBA had joined the Myawaddy People’s Defence Force and other Karen armed groups to jointly fight against the coup regime’s armed forces.
No information regarding casualties or injuries since then was available at the time of reporting.
