Myanmar army sergeant shot dead in Mandalay

An off-duty army sergeant who was visiting his mother in Mandalay was shot dead in the city’s Maha Aungmyay Township early Tuesday morning, according to local sources.

A man living in Maha Aungmyay’s Aung Chan Thar ward said that the victim’s body was found lying in a puddle of blood near the ward’s community hall at around 7am on Tuesday.

“I heard that he was a soldier posted in Yangon, visiting his mother in Mandalay,” the man said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He was out buying some snacks. He was killed on the spot. We even saw the pack of snacks that he bought beside his body,” he added.

According to the man, the body had been shot five times, in the chest, head, and arms. 

In a statement released later the same day, Generation Z Power, the group that claimed responsibility for the killing, identified the victim as 40-year-old army sergeant Myo Htwe.

Junta troops were conducting searches of Aung Chan Thar ward in the wake of the shooting, residents of the area told Myanmar Now.

There were also reports of an explosion near the Mandalay University of Foreign Languages earlier in the morning, at around 6am. No further details were available at the time of reporting.

There was also an explosion in Mandalay’s Pyigyitagon Township at around 7pm the previous evening, according to residents of the area. The blast hit a fire station near the corner of 59th Street and 117th Street and killed one person, sources said.

A group called the Mother Son Mandalay Force later released a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, which it said was carried out with two other guerrilla groups, the Myanmar Revolution Ranger Force and Kings Cobra Guerrilla Force-MDY.

According to the statement, the fire station was targeted because it was being used for meetings of the military-backed Pyu Saw Htee militia group. The person killed in the attack was a member of the group, the statement claimed.

Myanmar Now has been unable to independently verify these claims.

There have also been reports that another bomb planted near a heavily fortified police station in Pyigyitagon’s industrial zone failed to detonate. Residents of the area said they heard multiple gunshots being fired from inside the police station at around 3pm on Monday.

At least eight similar incidents took place in Mandalay between June 12 and June 20, according to information received by Myanmar Now.

In response to the attacks, the junta has been increasing its searches of homes in the city and setting up more security checkpoints, residents said.