Myanmar

Operation 1027 clashes spread to Nawnghkio Township near Pyin Oo Lwin

The sixth day of the Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027 brought heavy fighting and airstrikes to Nawnghkio Township, northern Shan State as the junta sent reinforcements from nearby Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay Region

Fierce battles broke out on Wednesday in Nawnghkio Township, northern Shan State near the border with Mandalay Region as a joint offensive by three ethnic armed groups entered its sixth day.

The ethnic armed organisations that make up the tripartite Brotherhood Alliance—the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Arakan Army, and the Kokang armed group Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA)—had already captured the China-Myanmar border town of Chin Shwe Haw and multiple military bases in northern Shan State in the first few days of Operation 1027, which launched in the last week of October. 

On Wednesday morning, members of the People’s Defence Force-Mandalay (PDF-MDY) joined the TNLA in a battle with junta forces in villages near Nawnghkio. Local civilians said the fighting started when an army convoy traveling the Pyin Oo Lwin–Nawnghkio road approached the road’s junction with the New Pyin Oo Lwin-Mogok road in northern Shan State. 

The convoy, which consisted of two armoured vehicles, ten army trucks, and two car haulers from a junta base in Pyin Oo Lwin, was on its way to a rendezvous with army troops stationed in Yae Win and Thea Khaw villages in Nawnghkio Township. The TNLA and PDF-MDY both have bases only a few miles from the army troops’ position.

“At around 10am, a junta convoy passed through Bant Bway and headed towards Yae Win and Thea Khaw villages. Then a battle started, and a junta fighter jet flew over and opened fire,” a young resident of a nearby village said.

A map of Nawnghkio Township, the site of recent fighting between the army and anti-junta forces (Myanmar Now)

A local woman said she had heard heavy artillery as early as 3am on Wednesday, several hours before witnessing the junta aerial attack during the battle. 

“At around 3 in the morning, we heard the sound of heavy weapons being fired, then the army sent their reinforcements into Yae Win,” she said. “Their plane was flying in a big circle over the village, and when it was just about to turn, it started firing. We were in the middle of a battle from three sides.”

The TNLA also claimed that the junta carried out airstrikes near Ong Mah Kar and Hsam Ma Hse villages—the locations of the nearby TNLA and PDF-MDY bases—at around 11am that morning.

Pyin Oo Lwin, the location of the junta base from which reinforcements were sent into Nawnghkio Township on Wednesday, is also home to several military training academies. 

Junta-appointed administrators in villages between Nawnghkio and Pyin Oo Lwin had reportedly warned residents to evacuate by noon on Tuesday, the day before the fighting began. Some residents fled to Pyin Oo Lwin or Mandalay, but some remained in the villages during the battles. 

Since October 30, the fourth day of the Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027 in northern Shan State, anti-junta forces have controlled the eight-mile segment of road between Nawnghkio and Goke Hteik, Nawnghkio Township.

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