A full day of fighting in southern Shan State’s Pekhon Township left two elderly residents dead on Tuesday after junta forces used artillery to fire on residential areas in the town of Moebye.
According to Aung Min, a battalion commander with the Moebye People’s Defence Force (PDF), anti-regime forces clashed with a column of around 200 junta troops from 8am to 5pm on Tuesday.
None of the resistance groups involved in the fighting suffered any casualties, but a number of regime soldiers were killed by sniper fire, he said.
“They were staying close to civilians near Nyaung Waing, so we decided to stick to using snipers to attack them,” he told Myanmar Now.
The column was travelling from Kone Thar, a village in Karenni (Kayah) State’s Loikaw Township, to Nyaung Waing, a ward in Moebye, when it came under repeated attack from an alliance of Karenni resistance groups active in the area.
Fighting continued until the military withdrew from Moebye in the evening, after which the anti-regime groups began clearing the area, according to Aung Min.
An official from a local social welfare group said that two people—a woman from Moebye’s Zay Kone Ward and a man from Pwel Kone Ward 1, both in their 60s—were killed by the military’s shells during the battle.
The woman suffered a direct hit, while the man died of a heart attack upon hearing the shells detonate, the official said.
“Some people were sheltering at the local monastery, but not many had fled the area completely,” he said, explaining that the two victims were in their own homes at the time of their death.
“From what I heard, the military was firing both heavy and light weapons almost non-stop,” he added.
Several Moebye locals confirmed that a petrol station was also destroyed during the battle.
According to Aung Min, resistance forces detained three men dressed as civilians in Moebye on Tuesday on suspicion of being junta scouts.
The groups that took part in the fighting included the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), a coalition of local groups known as United Revolution Front, and forces under the direct command of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG).
In addition to the Moebye PDF, the NUG-backed groups included the Pekhon PDF and the Southern Shan Revolution Youth (SSRY) group, according to a statement released by the SSRY.
The SSRY also fought alongside the KNDF and the Karenni Army during clashes with junta forces near Daw Tar Naw, a village in Loikaw Township’s Loilin Lay village tract, last Friday.
The KNDF reported that one of its members was killed in the fighting near Daw Tar Naw, and that the military also destroyed one of its bases on Sunday.
More than 200,000 ethnic Karenni civilians have been displaced by clashes in Karenni State and parts of southern Shan State since fighting began in the region last year, according to the Karenni Civil Society Network.
