Need for aid urgent as military-trained militias displace more people Magway Region

Aid workers and resistance members in Magway Region said the need for food and other necessities has increased in recent weeks as more displaced civilians gathered in camps to escape pro-junta militias’ raids and encroachment into their home villages. Thousands of displaced people have come to resistance-held areas in the region’s Pauk Township and are unable to return home due to occupation by junta-trained militia groups, according to the displaced people themselves as well as the people aiding them. Saw Mya*, a mother in her 30s, was previously displaced from her home village and living in the Hman Taung Kwin displaced people’s camp in Pauk Township, when she was forced to flee again. She says she lost all her belongings when the Pyu Saw Htee militias—groups of civilians organised, armed, and trained by the military—raided the camp on October 28. “They stole all of our belongings including our best cows,” said Saw Mya, who is a mother to a three-year-old child. “Then they torched our house and anything that they couldn’t take with them.” Saw Mya is one of more than 1,000 displaced people who had fled to the Hman Taung Kwin camp after their home villages were occupied by the Pyu Saw Htee militias and established as pro-junta strongholds. At least nine buildings including a clinic in the Hman Taung Kwin camp were razed during the October 28 raid, according to the people who fled. Saw Mya, her family, and the many others had few resources or options left after being displaced a second time. “We lost our house and the chance to rebuild it is out of our reach,” she said. View of a displaced people’s camp in Pauk Township, Magway Region in September 2024 (Photo: Supplied) Pauk Township and surrounding areas in northern Magway Region had a heavy presence of anti-junta armed resistance groups until recently, when the military regime began to deploy the Pyu Saw Htee militias to occupy villages and establish control there. Civilian populations have effectively abandoned at least one tenth of Pauk Township’s approximately 250 villages due to the encroachment of the regime-backed militias or because they felt increasingly unsafe near junta police stations and well-guarded junta arms and munitions factories. Since 2023, anti-regime forces have been helping villagers to relocate to safer areas in resistance-held territories, according to the Pauk People’s Administration Team (PAT), which is affiliated with the publicly mandated National Unity Government. The resistance administrators said their assistance is often needed for civilians to escape forced recruitment into Pyu Saw Htee militias, which has accelerated with the military’s renewed enforcement of mandatory military service this year. “We relocated the inhabitants of at least three villages near the No. 24 weapons factory. As the number of displaced people increased, we tried to find space for them across three locations,” a Pauk PAT spokesperson said. So far, at least 13 temporary camps for the displaced have been set up in areas of Pauk Township under resistance control, but maintaining sufficient access to critical humanitarian aid has been difficult. “They left behind all their belongings, fleeing with only the clothes on their backs,” the PAT spokesperson said. “They will need blankets and mosquito nets for the cold season in addition to drinking water.” More than 12,000 displaced people in resistance-controlled areas of Pauk Township, Magway Region are now in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the PAT’s data.The PAT also estimates that—in addition to incursions by the militias—raids by army troops have resulted in the abandonment of more than 15 villages and caused damage to more than 4,300 civilian homes in 70 villages in Pauk Township. *Name is changed to protect our source’s security

Need for aid urgent as military-trained militias displace more people Magway Region

More civilians have been forced to flee their homes as the Myanmar junta has accelerated its formation of pro-regime militias to occupy villages and forcibly recruit new members

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