More than 10 members of the resistance were killed in Sagaing Region this week attempting to protect villagers or rescue injured fighters from Myanmar army offensives in Budalin and Kawlin townships, according to local sources.
Three civilians were also among the casualties across both locations.
Four members of the anti-junta Local Defence Force (LDF) of Budalin were shot to death on Tuesday morning after a 70-soldier military column from Ye-U arrived unexpectedly at the northern entrance to Eastern Pe Pyit Taw, a village three miles from Budalin town on the road to Monywa.
Residents from nearby Western Pe Pyit Taw and Ta Lein had fled there, after it was assumed that the junta unit would travel through their own villages, putting them in danger.
“The defence forces deployed the maximum security, but they didn’t come using the route that the resistance forces thought they would—they came using a way shown to them by an informant instead,” a local said.
The four LDF members who were killed that day had been in the village to provide assistance to the displaced residents of Western Pe Pyit Taw and Ta Lein, an officer from local social welfare group Kyal Ni explained.
“They were shot while they were telling the people to run. They died saving the civilians,” he said.
A 40-year-old local man named Tun was also killed in the ambush, and four other villagers were injured. Four homes in Eastern Pe Pyit Taw were also destroyed.
The column left Budalin Township that afternoon, taking six women and several men hostage, along with three cars, including one that belonged to the Kyal Ni social welfare group.
Eight resistance fighters and two civilians were killed one day earlier in Kawlin Township during a four-hour afternoon battle at Ayoe hill, after an 80-troop military unit based in Kanbalu Township’s Koe Taung Boet village entered the area.
The civilians, believed to have been unarmed, were found shot to death in a field on Tuesday. They were identified as 22-year-old Thein Zaw and 32-year-old Chanthar, a teacher taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement.
According to Kawlin’s People’s Defence Team (PDT), or Pa Ka Pha, five of the eight fighters killed on Monday were members of an allied local defence force who had been trying to rescue two wounded members of their group. Three more belonged to the PDT.
Most were reportedly armed only with handmade guns, while the junta troops reportedly had RPGs.
“There was just a huge difference in firepower,” the leader of the Kawlin PDT said. “The group that went to rescue those who were left behind only had one actual rifle—the others were just handmade rifles. The military fired both heavy and light weapons at us from up on the hill. Our people had to run into the fields. It’s like we ran right into their territory.”
After the battle, the Myanmar army unit deployed troops to villages east of Ayoe hill, including Zee Kone, Inpin Thar and Kat Kat Pha Lu villages. They were seen carrying bodies of dead or injured men on their departure, according to local sources, though the number of junta casualties was not known at the time of reporting.
