According to independent media and a local, soldiers from Myanmar’s military government stormed a village in the country’s central area on Friday, killing 19 residents, including four children, and burning their bodies.
The killings on Wednesday in Nyaung Pin Thar hamlet, Htantabin municipality, Bago district, may have been in retaliation for an attack by resistance elements opposed to army control.
According to a member of the locally formed People’s Defense Force quoted by Radio Free Asia, the killings occurred after fighting the same day between the army and his group and its allies from the Karen National Liberation Army, an ethnic rebel group that operates in the area. According to him, the rebel troops killed 20 soldiers and kidnapped three officers.
A farmer from the area told The Associated Press that the raid by roughly ten troops killed his wife, 7-year-old daughter, and nine other relatives.
The farmer, who requested anonymity because he feared prosecution, said he had been working in the fields and did not return on Wednesday after learning soldiers had stormed the area, so he did not witness the executions.
When he arrived the next day, his family members had vanished, and he discovered victims burnt beyond recognition in two locations across the little community.
“They can kill people as easily as they can kill a chicken or a bird.” On humanitarian grounds, they should have released the youngsters, who don’t comprehend anything,” the farmer remarked.
He claimed that 19 people were slain and that they seemed to have been shot in the head before their bodies were burned with gasoline and diesel fuel stolen from a village shop. He also stated that the soldiers enjoyed beer and alcoholic beverages.
Reports of the killings, as well as what appeared to be photos and videos of the victims’ remains, appeared in independent Myanmar media and social media on Friday, the same day a human rights monitoring group released a report charging that Myanmar’s military is deliberately carrying out atrocities, including beheadings, to instill terror in those fighting the army and an already dismayed public.
Myanmar Witness, a human rights organization, singled out an army unit nicknamed the Ogre Column for its cruelty in the center province of Sagaing, which is considered Myanmar’s traditional heartland.
Sagaing is a center of armed opposition to the reigning military, which seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratic administration on February 1, 2021. The army’s seizure sparked widespread nonviolent protests, which were met with brutal force, sparking armed resistance across the country.
According to Myanmar Witness, at least 33 villagers were slain between late February and early April, with 12 of them being beheaded and two mutilated by the Ogre Column and other forces.
The majority of the beheaded victims were displayed in a horrific manner.
“In a number of these cases, people were killed and then beheaded.” “Because the beheadings serve no functional purpose, they serve as a dramatic and horrific warning to those who oppose military rule,” according to the article.
The Ogre Column is reported to be part of the army’s 99th Light Infantry Division.
