Regime forces who dumped the bodies of five people they killed on Monday returned to collect them the next day, according to residents of a village in Mandalay Region’s Ngazun Township.
Locals say they found the bodies in the southern part of the village of Kula Ywar Gyi as they were walking to their fields early Tuesday morning.
The victims—four men in their 30s and a young woman in her late teens or early 20s—had their hands tied behind their backs and bullet wounds in their heads, the villagers said.
According to a local man who saw the bodies before they were taken away, three military vehicles arrived in the village at around 9pm the night before.
“We heard several gunshots, but we were too afraid to go out and see what was happening. It looks like they just dumped the bodies and left,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The villagers were still examining the bodies—which were also blindfolded and had their feet as well as their hands tied—when the three army trucks returned.
Another local told Myanmar Now that the victims were not residents of Kula Ywar Gyi and suggested that they had been disposed of there to make it look as if they had been killed by the anti-regime People’s Defence Force (PDF).
“They wanted to make it look like the PDF did this, but we know who it was. A number of people here saw them coming in their trucks,” he said.
A member of a local defence team said the move was probably also meant as warning.
“There have been quite a few clashes with junta targets in Kula Ywar Gyi, so they are just trying to discourage people living there from taking part in the revolution,” he said.
Resistance forces assassinated the village’s junta-appointed administrator in February of this year and then killed his successor in April.
The identities of the five victims killed on Monday could not be determined at the time of reporting.
The military routinely disposes of bodies on roadsides, especially when their victims are affiliated with Myanmar’s ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy.
