A Myanmar junta convoy has suffered heavy causalities in Yinmabin Township, Sagaing Region, according to resistance fighters.
More than 100 military vehicles, including two tanks and approximately 200 soldiers, left Chin State and arrived in Pale Township on June 12.
It is reportedly the first deployment of tanks in Yinmabin.
Min Kong, commander of the Golden Triangle Force (GTF), told The Irrawaddy that Yinmabin and Pale resistance fighters repeatedly attacked the convoy with mines, meaning it sometimes moved less than a mile a day.
It arrived at the Chinese-owned Wanbao mine in Salingyi Township on Monday.
“There were approximately 40 to 50 regime casualties because many resistance fighters
repeatedly attacked the convoy with bombs,” said Min Kong.
He said his group and allied people’s defense forces attacked the convoy on Sunday, killing at least 10 soldiers and injuring many others.
The GTF uploaded a video on Facebook showing many bloody bandages on the ground and purportedly burned soldiers.
The GTF said it was the group’s third attack on the convoy.
From Pale to Wanbao’s mine is about 40km which took the convoy nine days.
The resistance believes the convoy must be carrying something valuable because of its large number of vehicles.
More than 5,000 people from about 15 villages, including Kayay Sar Kya, Kaung Sint, Sel
Pin Kan and Kan Kone, on the Pale-Yinmabin-Monywa road fled their roadside homes to avoid fighting.
On Monday the convoy set fire to Kaung Sint and killed a man in his 50s.
Three civilians were detained and carried with the convoy as hostages.
By the end of May, an estimated 18,886 houses and other buildings had been burned down by the regime across Myanmar and Sagaing has suffered the most, losing an estimated 13,480 houses, according to Data for Myanmar, an independent group monitoring junta atrocities.
