According to local sources, 17 civilians in Hpakant, a Kachin State city known for jade production, have been killed within one month by unidentified perpetrators.
The victims were fatally shot or stabbed, sources said, due to motives that remain unclear.
On Thursday afternoon, a man in his 30s was killed instantly by gunshot to the head while filling his vehicle tank at a fuel station in Mamon village in Hpakant according to residents.
A local man, citing eyewitnesses, said people riding by on a motorcycle had shot him at close range.
“These kinds of dramatic shootings have become frequent here. I don’t know which group did the shooting yesterday. We only know that the victim who was shot dead was Rakhine. I don’t know why he was killed,” the resident told Myanmar Now on Thursday.
Many of the several thousand domestic migrant workers who have come to Hpakant seeking jade are from Rakhine State, one of the poorest regions in Myanmar.
On the same day, a man in his 40s selling fast food from his motorcycle was also shot and died at the scene. An ice pop seller and a pickled fruit seller were also among those killed in early October.
After the military coup, the violent killing of peaceful protestors by the junta provoked an armed resistance throughout the country. The resistance fighters have sometimes targeted junta informants and collaborators among the civilian population.
In the jade-producing city of Hpakant, attacks on junta troops and suspected pro-junta informants are frequent, but it is uncertain how many are perpetrated by locally active, anti-junta ethnic armed organisations such as the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Kachin People’s Defence Force (KPDF).
Junta forces, including the police, army and junta-allied militias, also kill civilians and those they suspect of having affiliations with anti-junta groups.
An officer of the KPDF chapter based in Hpakant denied the group’s responsibility for the killings, saying it was common for assassins and extortionists to misuse their group’s name.
“If a person is believed to be a pro-junta informant, we might kill him. But only after we investigate thoroughly. We have never done this kind of killing in the streets before,” the KPDF officer said.
Fighting between the KIA and the junta in Kachin State has intensified since the military coup as different forces struggle for control of Hpakant Township and its jade deposits.
Amid the instability in the region, the rate of robberies, killings and other crimes has increased.
The general lawlessness has left the people of Hpakant in fear for their safety, aggravated by the numerous deaths and injuries over the years that have resulted from accidents and disasters due to poorly regulated, unsafe conditions for jade pickers, miners, and other residents of the city.
