Myanmar: Eleven people allegedly shot, set on fire by soldiers

Myanmar soldiers allegedly shot 11 people and set them on fire on Tuesday in a village in the country’s Sagaing region, Reuters reported on Thursday. The civilians were killed in retaliation to an attack carried out on a military convoy, witnesses in the Don Taw village alleged, according to AP.

Vehicles belonging to the military had been attacked on Tuesday by People’s Defence Force – an anti-military guerilla group in Don Taw, Myanmar Now reported. After the attack, nearly 100 soldiers raided the village in search for the attackers.

“The troops were just brutally killing anyone they could find,” a volunteer aid worker in the area told Reuters, citing witnesses. The volunteer has assisted people who have fled Don Taw and other nearby villages.

“They beat them to the brink of death and burned them alive before they died,” a leader of the People’s Defence Force alleged, according to Myanmar Now. “Some of them are not even 18.”

Purported videos that showed the burnt bodies were circulated online.

International non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch described the incident as brazen. “It happened in an area that was meant to be found, and seen, to scare people,” the organisation’s spokesperson Manny Maung said, according to AP.

Manny alleged that such incidents had been happening regularly but only the killings in Don Taw…

Read more