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Ward administrator killed in Taze, Sagaing Region

A junta-appointed ward administrator was shot dead in Taze, Sagaing Region, on Wednesday morning, according to a member of a local social welfare organisation and a group that claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ye Tun, the administrator of Paw Oo ward in Taze, was shot in the head by an unidentified gunman at around 7am while on his way to the opening of a local high school on the southern outskirts of the town, a resident of Taze told Myanmar Now.

“He had made efforts to reopen schools and encouraged students to go to school,” said the local. He added that Ye Tun often reported anti-regime activities in the town to the authorities.

Ye Tun served as an administrator under the former Thein Sein government and was reappointed to the position after the February 1 coup.

A local anti-junta resistance group called Taze People’s Comrades claimed responsibility for the murder in a statement released on social media hours after the incident.

The group said that one of its members killed the Paw Oo ward administrator and warned that it would “deliver the same fate to informants who are cooperating with the police and other ward administrators who are giving trouble to the public.”

The junta’s armed forces has tightened security and carried out searches in the area near the high school, said the Taze local.

On Tuesday night, a residential building in the compound of the Taze Police Station and a high school in Nabetgyi, a village 8km from Taze, were burned down, according to Taze residents. 

Until early April, the small town of roughly 6,000 residents had seen huge turnouts at daily anti-regime demonstrations. Subsequent crackdowns on those protests left more than a dozen people dead. 

Following a series of attacks on local regime officials, the administrator of Kuntaing, a village about 50km southeast of Taze in Khin-U Township, resigned from his position on Wednesday.

Kuntaing village administrator Aung Than Zaw said he could no longer serve as a village official due to health concerns and personal circumstances, according to the leaked resignation letter that he submitted to the regime’s Khin-U Township Administrative Council. 

 

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