Myanmar junta troops dismember, kill 11 civilians in Sagaing Region

(Content warning: This article contains descriptions of extreme violence that may be disturbing for some readers. We advise discretion in reading this content.) The People’s Administration Team (Taze PAT) of Taze Township, Sagaing Region released a statement on Monday accusing the Myanmar army of brutally killing and mutilating the remains of 11 civilian men in the township between February 21 and March 1. The PAT, which operates under the publicly mandated, anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG), alleged that junta troops murdered the defenceless victims—all men between 27 and 70 years old—while holding them captive. The PAT’s statement cited accounts from eyewitnesses, who said only one of the victims appeared to have died by gunshot alone, while the rest were beheaded, had their throats cut, or were beaten or hacked to death. Some were dismembered before being killed, according to eyewitnesses. "They had their hands and feet cut off before they died. Their genitals were cut off and hung up on hooks on nearby houses,” a Taze Township PAT official said. Soldiers from Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) 11, 361, 708, and members of the junta-trained Pyu Saw Htee militias were responsible for the killings, the Taze PAT official alleged. He added that on February 21, before the murders, resistance forces had attacked an army base camp near Kan Htu Ma village, some ten miles west of Taze. A junta column of around 100 troops had advanced into the area from their base in Ye-U Township, Sagaing Region the same day. Another column arrived three days later from a base in Kanbalu Township, and the troops began to terrorise and kill civilians in the area, the PAT official said. Among the slain victims, the body of Moe Zaw Oo, a 45-year-old man from Pan Tein Kone village, was the most badly mutilated. The soldiers had beheaded him and removed his genitals, according to a member of the local, NUG-commanded People’s Defence Team (PDT) tasked with collecting the victims’ remains. They had also evidently applied makeup and put a hat and eyeglasses on his severed head, and had stuffed tobacco in his mouth, according to the PDT member. “We found one small knife and one broad-bladed knife next to where he was killed. The soldiers had killed him in cold blood. They cut off his penis, as well as a big toe and a smaller toe, and partially disembowelled him,” he said. "He was genuinely just a civilian,” added the PDT member, who had retrieved seven of the bodies of the eleven victims. The bodies of Htay Aung, a 52-year-old palm tree climber, and Nyein Cho, a 49-year-old local swineherd, were both found near Zee Pauk village. Both were reportedly beheaded. "Htay Aung was just a palm tree climber. He didn't know the army column was coming. The troops cut off his penis, then hung it up near his armpit using a clip. They cut off his head and pulled out his intestines. Nyein Cho was also killed there. He raises pigs and he knew nothing about the revolution. He was found with a gunshot wound in the chest, and his severed head lying about a yard away," the PDT member said. He added that most of the bodies had their throats cut, and some had axe wounds. San Po, 40, and Swe Lin, 42, were among the victims whose bodies were found with these injuries. They were found near the village of Nyaung Kone on March 1. In September 2023, three residents of Nyaung Kone village in Pale Township, Sagaing Region were tortured and beheaded by junta troops. The heads were left on moveable benches in the middle of the village street. (Photo – Black Leopard Army) “Swe Lin’s head had been struck with an axe, his hands and feet had been cut off and his remains were charred. A stick was also found nearby with blood stains on it," the PDT member said. During the junta column’s rampage through the area, clashes had broken out with local resistance forces, resulting in the deaths of at least thirty junta soldiers and four resistance fighters, according to a Taze PDT officer. "They’re not fighting this like a war. They killed people who were only providing security for the village, or other civilians,” the officer said. In March of last year, a group of junta soldiers calling themselves the “Ogre Column” murdered and mutilated the bodies of more than two dozen victims in Sagaing Region’s Myaung, Myinmu, and Sagaing townships. The soldiers that committed the brutal murders in Taze Township are known to have withdrawn back to their respective bases in Kanbalu and Ye-U townships with their comrades by Monday. "Whatever feelings they may have, they ought to have a human conscience,” said the PDT member who helped to collect the victims’ remains. “If they had killed the victims with guns, we would think they had just killed them because they happened to meet them on their way. But this kind of behaviour is simply inhuman.”

Myanmar junta troops dismember, kill 11 civilians in Sagaing Region

Soldiers and junta-trained militia members in Taze Township tortured and murdered defenceless hostages before mutilating their remains, according to administrators and resistance fighters operating under the NUG

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