Junta troops killed four people, one of whom they beheaded, in Shwebo Township, Sagaing Region this week, according to anti-junta fighters operating in the area.
Locals found two bodies on Tuesday in Chi Par village, less than two miles southwest of Shwebo, after a column of around 70 soldiers withdrew from the area. The next day, the remains of two more victims were found in the village of Me Taw.
The victims discovered in Chi Par were identified as Han Zaw Myint, 25, and a cousin of his, for whom other identifying details were unavailable. Junta forces had arrested them the previous week in Shwebo on suspicion of breaking the junta’s curfew, which forbids people from leaving their homes after 6pm.
Before killing the captives, on August 20 the junta troops raided a temporary base near Chi Par held by People’s Defence Forces (PDF) under the command of the National Unity Government (NUG), according to a PDF fighter who participated in the fight.
“The junta soldiers had hostages with them to use for information so they could avoid the PDF outposts on their route. We didn’t know the junta column was coming until they reached the entrance of the village, and had to hurry to get away,” he said.
He added that he and his comrades exchanged fire with the soldiers for about half an hour, and that the resistance group lost a car, several motorcycles, and some uniforms in the raid, but did not suffer casualties.
The two other victims were killed on Monday after junta forces entered the village of Me Taw, located two miles southwest of Chi Par.
According to a spokesperson for the Shwebo Township People’s Defense Team (PDT), another NUG-commanded resistance group, they were not locals, but had instead been traveling as hostages with a junta column that had come from Shwebo.
“We suspect the hostages from the neighbouring district were killed on the pretext that they were PDF members,” the spokesperson said.
The body of one of the victims was found inside the village of Me Taw. The other victim’s head was found in a yard outside a house in the village, while the headless body had been dumped in a field less than a mile to the north.
Three of the four bodies had bullet wounds while the other body, found in Me Taw, had a stab wound to the chest, the resistance sources told Myanmar Now.
Myanmar Now is unable to verify as yet whether the victims were resistance members. The military council has not released any statement regarding these incidents.
According to the resistance sources, after the junta troops killed the four captives, they returned to Shwebo via Pa Laing, a village currently controlled by junta-allied Pyu Saw Htee militia forces located three miles southwest of Me Taw.
The execution of hostages used for information or as human shields has become a routine practice for junta forces.
In a similar incident in June, junta forces captured eight civilians in Kin Pyar village, western Shwebo Township, then allegedly used explosives to kill five of them. Photos obtained at the time showed that the victims’ bodies had been dismembered and badly mutilated.
The armed resistance against the regime has remained fully active in Sagaing Region and other parts of Myanmar more than two and a half years after the military ousted the elected civilian government in a coup.
