A soldier was shot and killed in Mandalay on Wednesday as he stood guard outside a local administration office in a neighbourhood known for its fierce resistance to the military junta.
A local resident said the unidentified attacker or attackers shot the soldier from inside a car on Kyan Sitthar road, near the corner with 62nd street in Pyigyidagun Township at around 6am.
“I heard three gunshots,” the resident told Myanmar Now. “When people came out to check, a car was already driving away from the scene. The soldier was already on the ground near the betel shop. We didn’t know he had died at first. We only found out later.”
The neighbourhood became a stronghold of anti-junta protests in the aftermath of the February 1 coup. Three soldiers now guard the area day and night, and much of Kyan Sitthar road is blocked off with barricades.
After Wednesday’s killing, soldiers arrived and questioned people in the neighbourhood, but no one was arrested, residents said.
Another person who lives nearby said that many roads in the area had only just been reopened but were now blocked off again by the military.
“Our ward is known for its protests, crackdowns, night protests and threats to the administration office,” she said. “When the military comes here they’re on high alert all the time. They only opened the roads not too long ago as there was a market on the blocked road. They’re all closed again now though.”
Earlier this month a soldier was injured when a bomb went off at the heavily-guarded Ye Mon Taung ward administration office in Mandalay’s Maha Aungmyay Township.
People’s Defence Force fighters have claimed responsibility for that attack, and two other bomb attacks in Pyigyidagun: one at a ward administration office and another at the township electricity office.
In June a junta-appointed 100-household leader in another ward in Pyigyidagun was stabbed to death. Dozens of local regime officials and suspected military informants have been killed in similar attacks across the country in recent months.
