More than 528 Chin citizens, including 311 resistance fighters, have been killed by Myanmar’s junta since the 2021 coup, the Institute of Chin Affairs (ICA) reported this week.
The rights group’s report “Human Rights Violations by the Military Regime Against the Ethnic Chin People” said the junta is brazenly breaching international law and human rights agreements.
Armed Chin resistance started with an attack on a Mindat Township police station in April 2021 when the regime repeatedly broke promises to release seven anti-regime protesters.
The Chin National Army, the armed wing of the Chin National Front, and the Chinland Defense Force are fighting the regime across Chin State and in neighboring Sagaing Region. The regime maintains a grip on the Chin towns but rural areas are mostly in rebel hands.
The ICA reported 750 clashes with junta troops in Chin State by October 1.
It said 15 resistance fighters had been killed in junta airstrikes, 23 by regime landmines and 11 were tortured to death by junta forces.
The report said 217 Chin civilians, including 24 children, were killed in indiscriminate junta shelling and airstrikes, landmines and under torture.
A six- and seven-year-old were killed in Chin State’s capital, Hakha, on October 19 last year when a regime drone bombed the Buanlung village school, the group said.
Regime forces abducted and killed a 15-year-old and his 17-year-old sister from Haimual village in Tedim Township on August 14 last year. She was repeatedly raped by junta troops before being killed, the ICA said.
Regime forces killed five Christian pastors and three church leaders and sentenced another pastor to 23 years’ imprisonment.
It said 101 churches and religious buildings were destroyed by junta shelling, airstrikes and arson attacks across Chin State and neighboring townships in Kale district of Sagaing Region.
The group said more than 1,000 Chin people had been detained and 2,100 houses burned down by the junta since the 2021 coup.
It estimated that 100,000 residents had fled their homes and another 150,000 had left Myanmar.
