The names of sources quoted in this story have been changed to protect their security.
“They told us they meant us no harm and just wanted to talk,” a civilian woman in Rakhine State said, recalling how a day of bloodshed and unimaginable horror began with junta soldiers promising she would be safe.
Thet Mar, 26, is one of the civilians living in Byine Phyu village in Rakhine State’s Sittwe Township who have accused the Myanmar army of brutally torturing and slaughtering scores of the village’s men last week in an apparent act of revenge against the Arakha Army (AA).
She described what she experienced after the soldiers came to her home in Byine Phyu village—located on the northern outskirts of Sittwe, near important junta air and naval bases as well as a regional
operations command centre. . .