Alleging collaboration with the junta, local armed resistance forces raided a fire station compound in the urban area of Budalin Township on Monday afternoon, making 21 arrests.
Among those detained were the chief of the township’s fire services department, 10 other firefighters, two other department employees, and eight family members of the firefighters and staff who were living in the fire station compound’s housing units.
The resistance force said they successfully completed the operation at the fire station, which began at around 2:30pm on Monday, without firing a shot.
The resistance forces that raided the fire station included groups under the command of the publicly-mandated National Unity Government (NUG) as well as other local defence groups based in the township.
According to a source close to the NUG-affiliated forces involved in the raid, junta troops arrived shortly afterwards, fired their weapons in the area around the station and began to stop and search civilians passing through the area.
The resistance force claims to have conducted the raid on the Budalin Township fire services department due to its past collaboration with the junta in sealing off dissidents’ houses and arresting civilians, and its dereliction in making timely rescues or promptly putting out fires following junta arson attacks.
“When the junta army set fire to houses even in the town, they didn’t dare put the fire out right away. They simply followed the army’s directives. So they are a pillar of support for the army. If they had good intentions, they would be fighting fires in the targeted villages,” he said.
The raid and mass arrest at the fire station is the first action of its kind carried out by an anti-regime armed group since the resistance movement against the coup first arose in Myanmar.
At the time of this writing, information on where and how the firefighters or their family members are being held is unconfirmed.
The Myanmar Fire Services Department operated under the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement during the previous military regime. However, in 2012 under the administration of Thein Sein, the authority for its operations was transferred to the minister for home affairs, whom the military’s commander-in-chief has the power to appoint.
Budalin is located about an hour from Monywa, the capital of Sagaing Region and location of a number of junta bases. Parts of Sagaing Region have become strongholds for resistance forces, and villages in Budalin Township and in the region more broadly have been frequent targets of arson attacks by junta troops.
According to information maintained by the monitoring organisation Data for Myanmar, the military has burned down more than 70,000 homes in Myanmar since seizing power in 2021, of which more than 70 percent were in Sagaing Region.
Junta troops set fire to some 180 homes in Budalin Township’s Son Kone village in March, and went on to torch around 80 houses in Yon Hlay Kone and other villages in the township the next month.
Following a junta raid on another Budalin Township village last month, three young student union leaders taken captive by the soldiers were tortured and stabbed to death.
