Two burned bodies were found in a village in western Myanmar’s Chin State on Tuesday, according to a spokesperson from the anti-junta resistance group Chinland Defence Force (CDF), which is based in the region.
The bodies were found near the village of Shet, around three miles from Mindat town in southern Chin State, along with a motorbike, CDF spokesperson Yaw Marn said.
He added that it had been confirmed that one of the men was a member of the CDF, but that the other had yet to be identified.
“One is for sure [a CDF member]. The other one must be a civilian… We don’t know which one got killed first, but then they were burned together,” he told Myanmar Now on Wednesday.
Yaw Marn also said that the bodies were found one day after a CDF member went missing after the group ambushed a column of some 100 junta troops operating in villages in Mindat Township.
He added that the Myanmar military troops had arrested at least four locals from the villages of Shet, Vawmm’tu and Htar Laung in recent days and that they remain missing.
Myanmar Now was unable to independently verify the CDF spokesperson’s claims regarding the two burned bodies or the detainees.
Since the second week of December, there have been daily clashes between the CDF and junta forces marching towards Chin State in two separate columns from Magway Region’s Kyaukhtu and Htilin townships.
Two CDF members and at least eight junta soldiers had been killed in those clashes by the time the Myanmar army troops arrived in Mindat town on Tuesday, Yaw Marn said.
A rural hospital in Vawmm’tu was hit by both heavy artillery shells and light weapons launched by the military column that also occupied the village. The hospital’s roof, walls, beds and some of its rooms were destroyed in the attacks, according to the CDF.
The junta has been sending massive reinforcements into the region since early October as part of an offensive aiming to wipe out local resistance to its rule.
The armed resistance forces challenging the military’s February 1 coup emerged in Mindat in late April and the military struggled to take control of the town. Through both ground offensives and airstrikes, the junta eventually seized Mindat and declared martial law in the township in May, subsequently cutting off most access to internet in the area.
