Another Village Official Slain in Northern Rakhine

By Min Aung Khine 7 March 2019

SITTWE—An administrative official was stabbed to death in Thayet Tabin village in Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township on Tuesday.

U Ba Saw, 47, was found dead with multiple stab wounds at his shop on a road just outside the village, said fellow village administrator U Saw Maung Thein.

“He ran a shop on the road near the village. He lived there alone, and his family lives in the village. His son found his father’s body in the shop on Tuesday and informed the authorities,” U Saw Maung Thein said.

The victim sustained four knife wounds; three in the chest and one in the throat, according to the police.

Kyauktaw police chief Police Captain Soe Lwin said U Ba Saw’s body had been sent to the township hospital for a post-mortem examination.

“We are in the process of investigating,” he told The Irrawaddy, adding that the motive was still unknown.

The victim had served as the secretary of the village administrative body under the former military regime, and was serving as an administrator responsible for 100 households in the village at the time of his death.

There has been a rash of unsolved murders in northern Rakhine State recently, and local villagers have been frightened by the latest incident, U Saw Maung Thein said.

On Feb. 12, U Maung Kyaw, a village administration official in his 50s, was shot dead by an unknown gunman in the village of Thayagon in Minbya Township.

U Maung Aye Thein, 56, a resident of Pan Myaung village in Minbya Township, met the same fate on Jan. 22.

On Dec. 24, U Khin Than Maung, a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Arakan League for Democracy, was gunned down at his house in Kya Inn Taung village, Myebon Township.