Junta troops have raided 14 camps belonging to anti-regime People’s Defense Force militia in Myanmar’s Sagaing and Magway regions over the past two weeks, killing 15 people, including women, militia officers said.
The military likely carried out some of the attacks after intercepting phone calls between rebels or gleaning information from the interrogation of captured PDF members, according to a former military officer who joined the country’s anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement following the February 2021 military coup d’etat.
A junta force of about 80 soldiers raided a PDF camp in Sagaing on June 7, killing and burning four anti-regime fighters and two civilians in Monywa township’s Yae Kan Su village, an acting battalion commander of Monywa district PDF’s Battalion 27 told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity.
“When we gathered about 200 people and went back into the village, we found the pieces of the burned bodies that the junta soldiers had left,” he said. “We found the blood and flesh of the victims.”
The four fighters killed by the junta troops were between the ages of 17 and 20, including two girls.
The Sagaing region has been an anti-junta stronghold and cradle of resistance to the country’s brutal military rule since the coup.
PDF fighters escaped a raid on their camp near the town of Ayadaw in Sagaing on May 28, but their cook – a 40-year-old woman – was captured, killed and burned, according to a Ayadaw township PDF soldier who refused to be named for security reasons.
“The military council troops of about 40 or 50 soldiers raided the camp,” he said. “They burned down a hut, a car and four motorcycles.”
RFA called junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun regarding the claims that military troops killed and burned the fighters and civilians, but his phone rang unanswered.
Phone calls tracked
The camps are often unexpectedly raided after the military intercepts telephone conversations, said Kaung Thu Win, a former military captain now with the Civil Disobedience Movement.
“We should only talk briefly if we need to use the phone. We should be cautious of security information in our conversation,” he said.
“The same goes with walkie-talkies,” he said. “The junta has appointed people who understand ethnic languages when they intercept the telecommunications of the revolutionary forces.”
The raids won’t seriously damage the anti-regime fight, political analyst Than Soe Naing said.
“Just as the anti-junta forces attack the military, collect their information and capture their supporters and informers, there are some pro-junta informers and supporters,” he said.
The National Unity Government’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement Monday that there were 500 armed clashes in four regions and states, including Sagaing and Magway, last month, with 41 resistance soldiers killed and 113 injured.
Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster .