Military watercraft in the Andaman Sea have been shelling villages in Palaw Township, Tanintharyi Region since Monday morning as the army fired on and raided the same area by land.
At around 5am on Monday, junta vessels off the Andaman Sea shore began firing on the villages of To, Pi Tat and Ma Daung, located near the coast in Myanmar’s southernmost region, some three miles from the town of Palaw. A junta ground unit also began firing on the villages using heavy artillery from the town of Pala (not to be confused with Palaw).
According to a spokesperson for the Myeik District People’s Defence Force (PDF) Battalion 1, an anti-junta resistance group operating in the area under the command of the National Unity Government, junta forces took at least 10 residents of Pi Tat village as hostages following the shelling.
“There were five ships at sea firing steadily. The junta was also firing heavy weapons from Pala, and they also started launching heavy shells at Ma Daung and Pi Tat,” the officer said.
“The people of Pi Tat village fled west, toward the sea. More than 10 of them were taken hostage, with the junta using them as human shields,” he said.
Junta forces have launched repeated assaults on To, Ma Daung and Pi Tat villages, targeting PDF resistance fighters they believe to be operating there.
By Monday afternoon, as reported by local people, one Pala resident in his 30s had been killed and around 50 residents of Pala had been taken hostage.
Anti-junta resistance groups maintain a strong presence in Tanintharyi Region’s Tanintharyi and Palaw townships.
According to Ko Star, a spokesperson for the Tanintharyi Region People’s Defense Team (PDT), the risk to junta forces conducting ground operations has led to an increased reliance on maritime routes for their manoeuvres.
“Every time they launched an offensive, they were triggering the resistance fighters’ explosives, so they’ve come to rely on ground operations less and less and have started moving by water,” he said.
The PDF resistance fighters maintain a checkpoint in Set Taw Yar village, located in the area near Palaw that came under attack, which they use to monitor and maintain control over major roads, according to Ko Star. This has enabled the resistance forces’ frequent use of explosive weapons in surprise attacks on army columns and convoys.
“In those areas, the PDF are not always dominant, but they have a checkpoint in Set Taw Yar in Palaw where they conduct routine inspections. There is no regular inspection at the other checkpoints,” he said.
The junta army’s targeting of civilian villages using heavy artillery appears to be a retaliatory response to the frequent attacks by the PDF.
injured by junta’s heavy artillery shell, on September 9 (Supplied)
On Saturday, junta shells detonated in Let Ku village, Palaw Township, killing 35-year-old Myat Phyo Wai and injuring four other civilians including a 6-year-old child and a woman.
The Tanintharyi Times, a local news agency, reported that on Thursday local resistance forces assaulted and set fire to a checkpoint near the town of Palauk, Palaw Township, manned jointly by junta army troops and members of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia.
Operations by the PDF have increased noticeably in the Tanintharyi Region this year. In August, more than 35,000 local people fled their homes in Tanintharyi Region due to the increased fighting, according to information from the Dawna-Tanintharyi aid group supporting internally displaced persons in Myanmar’s south.
