One person was killed and two others were seriously injured after regime forces shelled a village in Sagaing Region’s Wetlet Township on Sunday, according to local sources.
Ni Lone, a 35-year-old farmer, died instantly when an artillery shell fired at the village of Saing Naing Lay, located about 10km south of Shwebo, landed near him.
One of the two other victims, 35-year-old Kyauk Doe, was said to be in critical condition.
A resident of Saing Naing Lay told Myanmar Now that around 30 junta troops had fired multiple rounds of artillery towards the southern end of the village from a position to its north.
“They fired five or six times with artillery, and many more times with their guns. None of the shells landed in the village, but some hit houses along the road,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A number of houses were destroyed and several cows were killed, he added.
The shelling began after a military truck came under attack by resistance forces armed with explosives.
“We launched an assault on a truck that was carrying an officer. Then reinforcements from Infantry Battalion 42 arrived and they started firing indiscriminately in all directions,” said a member of the group that carried out the attack.
Regime and resistance forces have clashed repeatedly in Wetlet over the past month, resulting in casualties on both sides.
A week before the attack near Saing Naing Lay, junta troops killed nine resistance fighters and two civilians during an exchange in the eastern part of the township.
That clash was provoked by the burning of a local village by regime troops, resistance sources said.
Last month, junta forces murdered three civilians, including a paraplegic man, during a raid on the village of Kyauk Taing. Nearly 100 houses were also destroyed, local sources said.
Myanmar’s junta routinely denies targeting civilians in its efforts to crush groups opposed to its rule, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
