A village resistance leader in Sagaing Region’s southern Pale Township was found dead with his throat slit and head injuries after a raid by junta and military-allied Pyu Saw Htee militia forces last week.
The victim was Swe Thein, 60, leader of the people’s defence team of Ta Nei village. Ta Nei residents and defence team members found his body on the west side of the village on Thursday evening after the soldiers and militia members withdrew.
There were multiple head injuries on Swe Thein’s body in addition to the knife wound on his throat, according to a member of the village’s defence team who had seen the victim’s body.
“Half of his head was bashed in. I think they beat him with their rifle stocks. We couldn’t analyse the body very thoroughly as it was already starting to decompose. There was a knife wound on his neck but no gunshot wounds,” he said.
Some 80 soldiers and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia members had come to raid Ta Nei from the militia’s base three miles to the east in In Ma Htee village, Pale Township, at around 5am on August 1.
Twelve members of the village defence team were lying in wait for the junta forces, having set explosives in their path. The soldiers and militia members captured Swe Thein when he encountered them by chance while trying to bring food to the fighters, according to a spokesperson for Ta Nei’s people’s administration team, Zaw Htet.
“The fighters had set the explosives and were waiting nearby for the military to attack. The leader who had gone back into the village for food ran into the junta column,” Zaw Htet said.
The defence team members managed to withdraw under fire from the soldiers after Swe Thein’s capture but left behind twelve motorcycles, which the junta and militia forces torched and destroyed.
Local residents had been evacuated before the raid began, and there were no civilian casualties.
The junta column remained stationed in Ta Nei village for two nights, reportedly setting fire to eight houses in the village before leaving on Thursday evening. Local residents and defence team members found Swe Thein’s body as they were returning to their homes.
According to local news sources, the soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee members stationed in Hnget Pyaw Taw village, about five miles to the north, the day after withdrawing from Ta Nei.
Junta forces and allied militias have caused the displacement of many thousands of civilians from at least a dozen villages in the area, including Ta Nei, Hnget Pyaw Taw, and Nyaung Kone, according to Zaw Htet.
A junta airstrike in June hit a monastery and nearby houses in the village of Nyaung Kone, just four miles northeast of Ta Nei, killing 10 civilians and one monk.
