Around 70,000 residents of the first township taken by resistance forces in Bago Region have fled their homes as regime airstrikes target civilian areas, according to the Karen National Union (KNU).
Mone town was seized on Monday after the KNU’s Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and local People’s Defense Forces (PDF)s attacked the junta’s Light Infantry Battalions 590 and 599 and central police station, the KNU said.
Nineteen junta soldiers and 42 of their family members surrendered while resistance forces seized a large cache of weapons.
In response, the regime has launched airstrikes and artillery attacks on civilian areas, destroying a church and houses in Yay Lae village. Thousands of civilians from 85 villages promptly fled their homes and are in urgent need of food, materials for shelters, blankets and medicine, the KNU said.
“Those who can offer emergency humanitarian assistance should contact the Committee on Internally Displaced Karen Refugees [CIDKP] and KNU information wing,” the group said.
There is so far no information on civilian casualties in the township.
Mone Town is located in Nyaunglebin district, where KNU Brigade 3 is based. The KNU said the camps seized are strategically important as well as being close to the administrative capital of Naypyitaw.
Mone lies on the highway between Mandalay and Naypyitaw and is just three hours’ drive (175km) from the regime’s nerve center.
Another 10,000 civilians have fled from Kawkareik Township in neighboring Karen State over the past few days after KNU Brigade 6 launched an offensive to oust regime troops, according to the Karen Information Center (KIC).
The KNLA and allied resistance groups attacked junta bases in Kawkareik before dawn on Dec 1, prompting thousands of civilians from the town and 24 surrounding villages to flee to Myawaddy and Hpa-an townships.
“All of the residents from the town have gone already. We don’t know about the condition of the town because phone connections have been cut,” a Kawkareik resident sheltering in Myawaddy Township told the Irrawaddy.
Locals in Myawaddy and Hpa-an are helping the Kawkareik evacuees as much as they can, he added.
Regime airstrikes and shelling during the fighting have destroyed houses in the town, another resident told the Irrawaddy.
