Allied forces belonging to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Kachin People’s Defence Force (PDF) overran a police station near Tar Ma Hkan village in Kachin State’s jade-rich Hpakant Township on Monday morning, forcing the junta personnel inside to flee.
It was not known how many troops were stationed at the site, located some 18 miles west of the town of Hpakant, but a Kachin PDF officer said that some sought refuge in a nearby military base while others simply fled the area.
The Kachin forces proceeded to attack the base in question, he added.
“They are not even firing that many gunshots anymore. We are dropping bombs using drones as well as attacking them from the ground,” the Kachin PDF officer told Myanmar Now on Tuesday.
Both the police station and the army base are located on a hill south of Tar Ma Hkan, and had been maintaining control of the sizable village—home to a high school and a public hospital—from these positions. The hospital reportedly sustained damage in the fighting.
A junta fighter jet attempted to drive resistance forces out of the area by launching two airstrikes on the area at 5pm on Monday, as well as two more on Tuesday morning, according to local sources.
The military also fired heavy artillery at the village, causing an unverified number of casualties in at least four other nearby communities and destroying buildings.
A woman displaced by the fighting said that she knew of at least one man who was injured—hit in the hip by shrapnel when a junta shell fell on his home.
A 50-year-old Tar Ma Hkan local said that “no one” was left in the village, and that most residents had fled over the weekend to neighbouring communities, with few people staying behind to look after their homes.
The KIA and its allies have been launching recent assaults against the military in northern Shan State, seizing Mabein town in January.
