Ten men from three villages in Magwe Region were arrested and shot dead on Wednesday morning after the villages were raided by junta troops and a regime-supported militia notorious for torture, public execution and other acts of extreme inhumanity.
All 10 men were arrested and then shot in the head, armed resistance group Gangaw Defense Force and local media said.
The three villages are in Magwe’s Gangaw Township and the raids began at about 8 a.m.
Seven men were massacred and 20 homes were torched in Thin Taw village, a resident of the township said. The source told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that 17 civilians from the village – including a five-year-old child and a seven-year-old child – were arrested and taken away.
Two men were slain and six homes were torched in Swebo village, and one man was slain in Yay Taw village, local media and Gangaw Defense Force said.
A township resident said: “Military soldiers arrested the villagers and forced them to dress in resistance uniforms [before shooting them dead]. They did the same thing in each village … They want to root out the resistance, but when they can’t, they kill unarmed civilians.”
The villages were also looted by the marauding force of about 200 junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee militia members, local media reported.
The slain men were from 25 to 56 years old. They were identified as: Bo Than, 56, Htay Aung, 52, Kyaw Moe Lwin, 26, Maung Naing, 36, Maung Pu, 33, Myo Thant, 37, Pyue Thar, 56, Tint Lwin, 36, Toe Lwin, 25, and Zaw Linn Aung, 35.
The soldiers and militia are based in the township’s Myauk Khin Yan village, which they control and terrorize. In November, two resistance fighters were publicly executed in the village. They were videotaped being burned alive while hanging from a tree. Video footage of the crime emerged on February 6, shocking Myanmar.
The village is controlled by a Pyu Saw Htee militia, reportedly directed by “Bullet” Hla Swe, a former lawmaker of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. A former lieutenant colonel, he is a notorious ultranationalist who has frequently organized pro-military rallies.
The militia he reportedly controls is infamous for violence against civilians, including shelling into the village and others nearby. In March 2022, two civilians were tortured to death in the village.
Many residents of the village fled as the militia took control of it.
The junta supplies arms and ammunition to Phy Saw Htee villages across Magwe despite their reputation for murdering civilians and acts of extreme inhumanity, a Gangaw Township resident said.
“They are an extremist militia [but] the junta’s military airlifted arms and ammunition by helicopter to them,” he said.
