Kawkareik residents hesitate to return home after military recaptures town

Civilians from Kawkareik, Karen State travelled back to the town this week to inspect what was left after recent battles and decide whether to return to their houses, they said. While authorities have urged civilians to go back to Kawkareik—located on a section of the Asia Highway used as a major border trade route—the residents fear fighting will occur in the area again, they added. “They are trying to persuade people who fled to come back. Instead of returning and staying in Kawkareik again, people just went back for the things they had left behind,” a local man said. “The situation is such that no one can guarantee there won't be another armed clash there.” He told Myanmar Now that he had reentered the town himself on April 28 to retrieve possessions he had left at home when he fled the fighting. Since April 28, the junta has reportedly been gathering residents at a checkpoint near the village of Ta Dar Kyoe, west of Kawkareik, taking photos and allowing them to enter the town. “Most of the houses in town were gutted by fire, and almost every house has been broken into,” the local man said. “The houses are riddled with bullet holes. They were also broken into. Valuable items are missing,” he added. “Since we are shopkeepers, there were large rice cookers, large solar panels, and batteries among the items we lost. They rummaged through everything in the house, and all the items were strewn about.” Almost all the residents of Kawkareik were displaced by the fighting and do not know who broke into their homes. Some of the residents who returned to the city said that most of the houses in areas such as Auk Ywar (“lower village”) and Ah Lel Ywar (“middle village”) in Kawkareik Township are destroyed. Only scorched ground can be seen in some places, they said. “People have to struggle with new sorrows. I saw a couple with a child in the town yesterday, and they were looking through the rubble that had once been their home with tears in their eyes,” the Kawkareik local said. More than 37,000 people lived in Kawkareik before fighting displaced thousands of residents in recent years, according to data released by Myanmar’s General Administration Department in 2019. The army’s Infantry Battalions (IB) 97, 230, and 231 as well as Artillery Battalion 312, are based in or near Kawkareik. The bases have come under repeated attack by Brigade 6 of the Karen National Liberation Army and the White Tiger Column—a unit consisting of fighters from various anti-junta groups—since last December. The ministry of defence of the publicly mandated, shadow National Unity Government issued a statement at the end of February this year claiming the anti-junta forces had gained control of 60 percent of the town’s territory. However, KNLA Brigade 6 and the White Tiger Column withdrew from the area recently when the junta launched Operation Aung Zeya, a counteroffensive intended to recapture territory that had fallen to anti-junta groups in the Thailand-Myanmar border area. A junta convoy with armoured vehicles—carrying reinforcements and weapons including a howitzer and rocket launchers—arrived in the village of Kawt Nwe on the eastern outskirts of Kawkareik on April 13. The White Tiger Column fighters initially stood their ground and fended off attacks when junta forces arrived but withdrew after six days of clashes. According to Zwe, a leader of the White Tiger Column, the anti-junta fighters withdrew from the area because they could not match the junta’s firepower or capability in deploying unmanned drones. In a statement posted on the Facebook page of the Justice Soldier People’s Defence Force (PDF) on April 26, Zwe said the White Column was unable to fend off drone attacks after junta artillery destroyed their signal jammer, leaving them vulnerable. "After the jammer was destroyed, we couldn't handle the enemy’s drones and chemical bombs, so we had to withdraw," he said. During the battle, more than 100 junta soldiers and six from the combined anti-junta forces were killed, according to the statement by the White Tiger Column leader. 41 fighters from the allied resistance forces were injured, the statement said. Zwe’s statement also claimed that the junta forces’ drones were sophisticated, state of the art devices, and that the army forces had combat support from a splinter group of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army. “We are rebuilding our strength. We will fight again," Zwe concluded. Another officer of the White Tiger Column told Myanmar Now that one of the junta’s fighter jets had dropped bombs that produced blue, purple, and pale green smoke over Kawkareik, and that fighters who inhaled the smoke experienced vomiting, a drop in blood pressure, shortness of breath, and blurred vision. The officer added that the White Tiger Column is now conducting laboratory tests to verify their suspicions that the military is using chemical weapons. The junta’s Aung Zeya convoy was still advancing through the eastern outskirts of Kawkareik at the time of reporting, and junta troops had deployed to the Taung Thone Lone (Three Hills) base camp on the old Kawkareik-Myawaddy road. Posts on junta propaganda channels on social media claimed displaced people were returning to Kawkareik en masse. When reached for comment, the junta’s economic minister for Karen State Khin Maung Myint—also a spokesperson for the military council on matters concerning the state’s government—told Myanmar Now that Kawkareik residents are safe to return home thanks to the success of Operation Aung Zeya. "After the operation, fleeing people have returned to Kawkareik. The Security and Border Affairs Minister is overseeing the process himself,” he said. Myanmar Now’s local source in Kawkareik, however, said he had decided not to remain in the town due to the risk that fighting could occur again at any time. “It doesn't seem like the other side is going to give up,” he said, referring to the anti-junta forces. “So, if fighting breaks out again, people will suffer the same losses. I have no plans to stay in Kawkareik again.”

Kawkareik residents hesitate to return home after military recaptures town

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