
Civilian residents and anti-junta resistance members discovered the bodies of four men previously captured by junta forces on Wednesday near the Pathein-Monywa road in Yinmabin Township, Sagaing Region.
The deceased were Thein Ngwe, 44; Pho Nyan, 48; Zaw Myint Htay, 34; and Zaw Myo Khaing, 22; all taken captive by the soldiers on August 10 from the village of Lel Ngauk, located three miles south of Yinmabin. Their remains were found six days later in the Myauk Yamar Creek, near a bridge on the road.
“We found two bodies beneath the bridge first, and then found the other two downstream nearer the Chindwin River. Based on the condition of the bodies, they underwent torture before their deaths,” said Sekkya, an officer of the Yinmabin Township People’s Defence Team (PDT).
In addition to injuries on all four bodies indicating torture, one body had a wound showing the victim’s throat had been cut, and another had a gunshot wound to the forehead, according to witnesses who recovered the remains.
“Based on the condition of the bodies, it was impossible to tell when they were killed. It must have been a day or two before because they were already decomposing. We didn’t move the bodies back to our area, and cremated them close to where we found them,” an officer of the Lel Ngauk village PDT said.
He added that three of the bodies were cremated the same day, and the remaining body was buried.
Junta forces had been patrolling areas outside the regional capital of Monywa, Sagaing Region, to provide security for the Letpadaung copper mining project, a joint venture controlled by the military regime and the Chinese state-owned firm Wanbao Copper Company, Ltd.
According to local residents, a junta column moving through the area between Yinmabin and Pale, Sagaing Region, captured the four civilian men in Lel Ngauk on August 10 as they were on their way to feed and tend their cattle. The column subsequently took the captives with them as they moved east towards Salingyi, Sagaing Region.
The junta soldiers seemed to have killed the men on the way back towards Yinmabin before dumping their bodies near the bridge over the Myauk Yamar Creek, according to Sekkya.
Photos supplied by local groups showed pools of blood on the bridge.
Sekkya added that the junta soldiers were providing security for Wanbao, the firm operating the Letpadaung copper mining project, and that witnesses had seen the column enter and leave a compound owned by the company.
“The junta troops stayed in Yangtze-Wanbao for a night before providing security for Wanbao company personnel traveling the Pathein-Monywa road the next day,” he said. “The four slain people are the ones who were captured when the junta troops were patrolling the Yinmabin-Pale area.”
The troops patrolling the Pathein-Monywa road withdrew on Tuesday evening, leaving the four bodies to be discovered by local residents and anti-junta resistance groups the next morning.

When moving through territory where they are vulnerable to ambush by resistance forces, junta columns have been known to take civilians hostage to use them as human shields.
According to data collected by the Salingyi Township People’s Administration Team (PAT), junta troops that have stayed on Wanbao’s company compound have destroyed more than 400 houses in more than a dozen nearby villages, with the arson attacks resulting in at least 17 deaths.
The Salingyi Township PAT, which operates under the publicly mandated National Unity Government, issued a warning on August 10 that the Wanbao company will be subject to punitive action if it does not cease all business with the junta.
Myanmar Now was unable to reach spokespersons for Wanbao or the military council for comment on the capture or killing of civilians living near the Letpadaung mining project, or on whether the perpetrators may be deployed to patrol the area again.