Myanmar junta detains two villagers after finding buried arms cache in Bago Region

The Myanmar military uncovered a stockpile of weapons and arrested two residents of eastern Bago Region’s Waw Township on Saturday on suspicion of connections to the armed resistance. Junta troops entered the village of Aung Zay Ya on the west side of the Sittaung River that day before taking Win Myint, a man in his 50s, into custody and finding the hidden arms and ammunition during a search outside his farm hut. Resistance fighters had been taking shelter in the farm hut in the days before the arrest, a member of a local resistance force said. “They were en route to a ‘mission’ and buried their weapons in the field after running into a junta column. They uncovered the weapons when they questioned the farm hut owner,” he said. “They questioned him after their secret informant noticed strangers coming and going, became suspicious, and tipped them off.” After arresting Win Myint, the military authorities also detained Aung Ko Ko, another resident of the village, according to local sources and armed resistance groups. A local man said it was certain that the two detained men had no connections to the resistance forces. “They are ordinary farmworkers,” he said. “The junta troops are using their usual tactic of arresting anyone nearby when they find weapons. Even if no weapons had been found, they would have arrested them on suspicion alone.” Junta authorities also subjected the residents of Aung Zay Ya and other nearby villages to extensive personal searches and inspections of their phones, he added. The resistance fighter said the two men had been transferred from the police station in Waw Township to the Baw Net Gyi interrogation camp, operated by Artillery Operations Command 901 and located near milepost 41 on the Bago Region highway, just west of the junction with the Yangon-Mandalay highway. On Sunday, junta-affiliated media published a report on the arrests along with photos, referring to the detainees as “terrorists.” The junta-run media report claimed authorities detained the two men after receiving a tip from an informant and searching the farm hut. The search uncovered three short-range rockets, a homemade landmine made from a CP pipe, a pen-shaped, homemade gun capable of firing .22-calibre bullets, and 47 rounds of .22 Short ammunition, according to the report. Bago Region lies partly within territories under the control of the Karen National Union and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). Both anti-junta KNLA battalions and resistance groups under the command of the publicly mandated National Unity Government are active along the Sittaung River. The military council previously announced the arrest of a man on October 23 at the Nyaung Khar Shey gate near the village of the same name on the Yangon-Mawlamyine highway in Waw Township. The junta claimed the man was carrying ammunition and 16 firearms in a passenger van.Regime authorities also claimed to have captured resistance members with weapons in two separate incidents in October in Bago Region’s Yedashe Township. After an attack on the Nyaung Khar Shey police station in 2023, several locals were also arrested in April of that year, five of whom later reportedly died in custody at an interrogation camp.

Myanmar junta detains two villagers after finding buried arms cache in Bago Region

Military authorities arrested the owner of a farm hut and another local man in Waw Township before bringing them to an interrogation camp

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