One girl dead, two injured in junta artillery attack in southern Shan State

A 16-year-old girl was killed and two other children were injured after being hit by a junta artillery shell in southern Shan State’s Hsihseng Township on Monday, locals said. Myanmar army troops stationed in Hsaikhkawng and Loiput villages, north of Hsihseng town, indiscriminately fired artillery at the village of Twaypu—more than three miles away—hitting three teenage girls who were riding a motorcycle, according to residents. The deceased was identified as Nang Sein Mya, while the identities of the two injured survivors, aged 13 and 15, were not confirmed at the time of reporting. A representative of the Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLA)—an ethnic armed organisation active in the area—said the teens were among locals who had been displaced by earlier fighting and were driving to a nearby village to fetch drinking water at the time of the artillery attack. “The military council and its subordinate militias fired heavy artillery shells at villages for no reason,” PNLA spokesperson Khun Rein Yan told Myanmar Now. “The children were hit by a shell when they went back to their village because there was no drinking water in the place where they had taken refuge. One died and two were seriously injured.” Since late January, clashes between the junta’s forces and the PNLA have been erupting in Hsihseng Township, located in the Pa-O Self-Administered Zone (SAZ) designated by the military-drafted 2008 Constitution. The PNLA and its allies—including Karenni resistance forces and the People’s Defence Force—seized the town of Hsihseng on January 26, overrunning a police station and the bases of Infantry Battalions 423 and 424. Within days, the military had recaptured the town, backed by troops from the Pa-O National Organisation (PNO), a militia aligned with the junta that administers the Pa-O SAZ. Last year, the PNO was estimated by local media and civil society to have more than 4,000 troops under its command, but is said to be currently engaging in the forced recruitment of new members. The PNLA’s numbers were last estimated several years ago by local monitoring groups to be in the hundreds, but updated data was not available at the time of reporting. Battles between the PNLA and the junta broke out on April 6 in southern Hsihseng Township, as well as in neighbouring Pinlaung Township, according to the Pa-O Youth Organisation, which is monitoring the humanitarian situation in southern Shan State. The group said that during the more than two months of clashes in the region, the military has carried out 455 airstrikes and more than 2,500 ground attacks involving heavy weapons. Some 58 civilians have been killed in the fighting.

One girl dead, two injured in junta artillery attack in southern Shan State

An artillery shell fired by the Myanmar army in Hsihseng Township hits three teenagers on motorbike while they were fetching water from a nearby village

Subscribe for full access

How the global fuel crisis is upending Myanmar’s rice supply chain

No way out: Junta airstrike leaves prisoners burned alive in AA camp

Killing their own: How Myanmar’s military targets those left behind

The costly resistance operation that saved hundreds of civilian hostages

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

Myanmar dictator names members of new ‘super council’

Myanmar junta leader sworn in as self-appointed president

Insein Prison authorities deny medical treatment to seriously ill Myanmar Now journalist

Myanmar clients sue Norway’s Telenor for giving data to junta