Regime forces have taken control of Pa Zi Gyi, the village in Sagaing Region’s Kanbalu Township targeted last week in the Myanmar junta’s deadliest assault since it seized power two years ago, according to local sources.
A column of more than 100 soldiers arrived in the village on Wednesday afternoon after crossing the Ayeyarwady River from Thabeikkyin Township in Mandalay Region the previous day, the sources said.
A spokesperson for Battalion 4 of the Kanbalu District People’s Defence Force (PDF) told Myanmar Now that no clashes were reported because resistance forces were busy at the time assisting internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in the area.
“We’re still trying to rescue the IDPs, so we don’t know about the situation in the village right now,” he said.
A spokesperson for Kanbalu Township’s anti-regime People’s Administration Team said another junta column was also seen approaching Pa Zi Gyi from the west, but was still more than 15km away from the village as of late Wednesday.
Most of Pa Zi Gyi’s roughly 800 inhabitants have fled in the wake of last week’s devastating junta airstrikes on a gathering held to celebrate the opening of a People’s Administration Team office in the village.
Residents of neighbouring villages have also left, although a handful of farmers have recently returned to the area to tend to their livestock.
“We had to come back to take care of our cows, but almost everyone else is still hiding in the forests. We only just heard about the junta column a little while ago,” said one local man.
On the morning of April 11, a junta fighter jet dropped two bombs on the gathering in Pa Zi Gyi, which was attended by more than 200 locals, including dozens of children. Minutes later, attack helicopters arrived and fired on survivors of the initial assault.
Efforts to collect bodies and assist the injured were also hampered by further airstrikes and the continuing presence of junta aircraft, residents said.
On Sunday, the publicly mandated National Unity Government released a statement claiming that 128 adults and 40 children, including a six-month-old infant, were killed in the attack. Another 50 villagers were severely injured, it added.
In its own statement, the junta admitted to carrying out the attack, but insisted that it did so to “eliminate the revolutionary actions based in Pa Zi Gyi.”
