Six regime soldiers have given themselves up to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) since Monday following fierce clashes in and near the jade-mining hub of Hpakant, Kachin State, according to sources at the front.
The military regime’s forces have been battling the KIA and its allies in the Kachin People’s Defence Forces (Kachin PDF) since advancing into Hpakant Township from the west last Friday.
The first soldier surrendered to the KIA on February 2. After he reportedly received a reward of three million kyat (US $760) from the KIA, five more junta soldiers came forward to give themselves up, according to a local source close to the Kachin ethnic armed group.
“One soldier came yesterday, followed by five more this morning, after reaching out to the anti-junta forces. They were escorted here afterwards,” the source said on Tuesday.
The six surrendering soldiers were members of Light Infantry Battalion 381 operating under Military Operations Command 3 headquarters in Mogaung, Kachin State. They said their company commander, Captain Zarni Aung, had been killed during the fighting in Hpakant.
A Kachin PDF officer based in Hpakant Township confirmed the surrender and the number of soldiers, but said further details about the terms of surrender would be withheld while clashes in the township continued.
The Kachin PDF said they were involved in heavy fighting west of Hpakant’s Ma Shi Ka Htaung Ward and in a village around two miles south of town on Tuesday.
During the clashes west of Hpakant, in the village of Ah Hmaik Pon, a joint force of KIA and Kachin PDF fighters had attacked junta forces, who responded by setting up defences at the village cemetery.
“We struck first, and they haven’t pulled back. They’re concentrated at the Ah Hmaik Pon village cemetery,” the officer said.
A two-year-old child, as well as both the child’s parents, sustained injuries during the Ah Hmaik Pon clashes when the junta forces shelled the village, he added.
Junta artillery also reportedly killed two children and injured 13 in Moe Kar village on Hpakant’s northern outskirts, according to a local man, as well as injuring three children around 10 years old at a school in Hpakant and two more civilians in Ma Shi Ka Htaung Ward.
KIA spokesperson Colonel Naw Bu confirmed there had been civilian casualties and added that fighting was also ongoing elsewhere in the state, namely in Inn Taw Gyi, Mohnyin Township and in Waingmaw Township.
The Kachin PDF and KIA had conducted joint manoeuvres, capturing and clearing three base camps belonging to the junta and their allies in the Shanni Nationalities Army, according to Col. Naw Bu, as well as continuing to fight in Bhamo Township.
He predicted that, with battles ongoing in four townships across the state, conflict between the military and the KIA-led alliance was likely to intensify.
