The badly disfigured body of a man who was detained by regime forces in Sagaing Region’s Salingyi Township earlier this month was discovered last Thursday, nearly a week after his capture.
Khaing Soe, 36, was taken into custody on January 13 by a military column that had been carrying out raids in the area around the Letpadaung copper mine, according to local sources.
He was one of several people who were apprehended, but the only one who was not released. Witnesses said that he was later seen being used by the junta troops as a porter.
“His face was beaten to a pulp. His skull was crushed, and his eyes were almost falling out of their sockets,” said a man who was a part of the group that retrieved his body.
The body, which was also covered with bruises and scrapes, was discovered in a wooded area about 100m from the village of Shwe Hlay, the man said.
A local said he suspected that Khaing Soe had been singled out because soldiers found flyers requesting donations for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in his backpack.
“I think they thought he had something to do with the fundraising program,” the local said, adding that Khaing Soe was abducted while returning to his home village after taking his mother and sister to an IDP camp.
Regime forces began raiding villages around the Letpadaung mine earlier this month. Sources reported that in Khaing Soe’s home village of Kyauk Phyu Taing, 94 families were left homeless after their houses were set on fire.
A total of at least 200 houses in five villages have been burned down since the raids began, the sources added.
Although the junta troops have since withdrawn from the area, even residents who still have homes remain reluctant to return because they are “overwhelmed with fear,” according to one villager who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity.
The Letpadaung mine is jointly run by Chinese mining company Wanbao and the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, Ltd, a military-owned conglomerate.
Since last April, when local resistance forces demanded its closure, the military has repeatedly launched operations to secure the area, resulting in the displacement of thousands of local civilians.
Toward the end of last year, raids carried out by soldiers stationed at the mine and others sent from Monywa, where the headquarters of the military’s Northwestern Regional Command is located, forced some 10,000 civilians to flee.
At least five other civilians are known to have been murdered by junta troops near the mine since last year.
