Nine civilians were found dead by locals and members of an anti-junta defence force on Monday, following a three-day military raid on Chinpone village in Sagaing Region’s Yinmabin Township.
Six bodies were found near the village monastery which had been occupied by junta troops, two near a brick wall behind the building, and one inside a nearby home, a local man told Myanmar Now.
“The injuries suggest that they were tortured slowly until they died. Some of them had their arms broken and some had their jaws dislocated and some were badly bruised around their eyes,” he said.
Only two of the victims were identified, a 50-year-old man named Aung Mao, and a 19-year-old woman whose name was withheld, but whose father had also reportedly been tortured by the Myanmar army soldiers.
The other seven bodies have not been identified because they belonged to individuals who were not from Chinpone, the local man added.
The raid began on Saturday morning, when troops launched an airstrike from five Russian-made Mi-35 combat helicopters on a graduation ceremony being held by the anti-junta Yinmabin People’s Defence Force (YMB-PDF), the resistance group’s leader Bo Oo told Myanmar Now.
As around 50 troops entered Chinpone, locals said that they took around 200 people hostage, and proceeded to set fire to homes in the eastern and western parts of the village.
Among the captives were some 80 children under the age of 12, according to a statement released on Monday by the National Unity Government’s (NUG) ministries for human rights and women, youth and children’s affairs.
At least 30 were between the ages of 10 and 16, and were participating in an English and computer course offered in Chinpone, accompanied by their parents, locals said.
Many of those held were also under the age of five, and had been attending a pre-school located next to the monastery at the time of the attack, accompanied by their mothers. They were from Chinpone, Nyaung Kine, Saing Hlyar and Tha Min That villages, according to the local man who spoke to Myanmar Now.
“Some of the children got separated from their mothers and some of the mothers were looking for their children in panic,” he said of the scene following the troops’ arrival.
The NUG statement explained that those at the pre-school were apprehended and held by the occupying soldiers.
“Teachers evacuated the children to the basement of a nearby monastery where they were later located and have since been held hostage by junta troops,” the statement said. “The NUG condemns in the strongest possible terms the junta’s hostage-taking of the children as well as their teachers and parents.”
The local man said that the captives were released on Monday afternoon, as the junta’s forces left. He recalled that the soldiers opened fire on the village from four helicopters as they exited, after setting fire to cars and motorcycles in the village.
The helicopters reportedly then proceeded to take the troops to raid the neighbouring village of Thapyay Aye.
A 16-year-old boy from another Yinmabin village, Pan Ma Htone—7km from Chinpone—was among those captured by the military from the resistance force’s graduation ceremony, but later managed to escape.
He told Myanmar Now that an officer showed him photos of dead bodies on his phone and brutally beat him and other detainees.
“They tied our hands behind our backs and held us in their captain’s room. I tried to untie the ropes and fled at around 5am,” said the teen.
He added that the soldiers were using the monastery as an interrogation centre and that he could hear other detainees being beaten and tortured.
“I couldn’t do anything as I didn’t have any weapons. I had to save myself,” he said.
A 32-year-old YMB-PDF member witnessed the attack from inside a house in Chinpone, and managed to flee while the military was setting up their base in the monastery.
He also said that he heard screams coming from the monastery where the civilians were being held.
YMB-PDF leader Bo Oo told Myanmar Now that the resistance force chose not to attack the junta while they used the civilian captives as human shields, but said that if the occupation and destruction of property had continued, they would have fired on the troops.
On Sunday, a junta-controlled propaganda newspaper reported that the army apprehended “terrorists” in Chinpone as part of military “inspections” to increase “security and the rule of law” in Yinmabin.
“The terrorists fled to the northeast and west with many injuries,” the report said.
It did not mention the abduction of locals, including children.
