
Junta soldiers shot and killed four volunteer night guards at a village in Sagaing Region’s Shwebo Township overnight on Saturday, residents told Myanmar Now.
Villagers in Seikkhun heard soldiers fire about 30 rounds late in the evening, then more gunfire early on Sunday morning at around 6am, said one resident.
“Because it was already dark, no one dared to go outside and look,” the resident said. The next morning the villagers saw the bodies of Thet Soe, Htay Hlaing Win, Aung Paing Htwe and Aung Hein Kyaw near the local police station.
“They didn’t let anyone near the bodies,” said the resident. “They took the bodies to Shwebo and then sent them back on a social services vehicle, with all the bullets from their faces removed. We had to cremate them right away.”
A second villager told Myanmar Now that soldiers were patrolling Seikkhun on Sunday. There were also unconfirmed reports that the military had detained people.
After the killings in Seikkhun, soldiers travelled to the nearby village of Tettu, where they were met with residents who fended them off using hunting rifles at around 9am.
The soldiers then continued to the village of Palaing a few miles away, where they once again met with armed resistance from locals.
“I heard they took a person from our village and used him to detect landmines,” said a woman from Tettu. There were also reports that soldiers shelled a village next to Palaing called Kan Thar.
“They shelled the village twice; one hit an alcohol shop and the other one hit some electric cables,” she added. Villagers had already fled before the shelling and no one was hurt.
In Tettu, soldiers set fire to someone’s house, she said: “They burned a house down and the fire consumed three houses in total. There were no casualties on their side or ours. We had to retreat as there was a complete imbalance of firepower.”
Troops were stationed in Tettu village on Sunday night and she and other residents are still hiding in nearby forests.
“None of the villagers of the four villages around here, including Tettu and Palaing, dare to stay home anymore,” she said. “I had my first meal in two days just now.”