Military regime administrator gunned down in southern outskirts of Mandalay

Two men on a motorcycle killed a junta ward administrator on Wednesday night in Myitnge, a town in Mandalay Region’s Amarapura Township, locals and junta propaganda sources said. Saw Nay Htun, 47, worked as an official in Myitnge’s Myo Ma Ward, located some eight miles south of Mandalay’s centre. The assailants reportedly gunned him down near the “Jack One” restaurant on the Sagaing-Myitnge Road in the town’s Yankin area. “He was shot in the chest. He was still conscious and breathing after the shooting but passed away later at the hospital,” a local woman said, citing an eyewitness. Posts on junta propaganda Telegram also said Saw Nay Htun died of his injuries at the Mandalay General Hospital. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination, and it remains unknown which armed organisations might have been involved. However, Myitnge locals suspected that members of junta-trained militias and junta administrators like Saw Nay Htun had become targets of the armed anti-junta resistance for their role in enforcing overnight household guest registrations, extorting bribes from citizens, and forcibly recruiting young people for military service. Throughout last year, local junta administrators throughout the country became the vanguard enforcers of a conscription law that Myanmar’s military revived in February 2024 to address its shortage of manpower. Another junta administrator from Myitnge called Maung Zaw, also known by the name Zaw Thura Htun, was also shot and killed in December. Along with other towns south of Mandalay such as Myittha, Sintgaing, and Paleik, Myitnge became well-known as a hotbed of anti-coup protests and opposition following the military’s seizure of power and ouster of the elected government in Myanmar in 2021. Railway workers in Myitnge gained national recognition for joining Civil Disobedience Movement strikes opposing military rule. The coup regime’s violent crackdown on protest in these towns led to the emergence of numerous armed resistance groups in and near Mandalay, including so-called urban guerrilla groups active in cities and densely populated towns.

Military regime administrator gunned down in southern outskirts of Mandalay

Posts on online junta propaganda channels said the slain official was a member of the military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)

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