Myanmar’s junta has torched more than 450 houses from three villages in Kantbalu Township, Sagaing Region, near the site of the devastating Pazi Gyi airstrike.
Around 200 troops raided Pazi Gyi on April 20 while jets bombed the village. Residents said 215 out of 230 houses in the village were destroyed.
Airstrikes on Pazi Gyi earlier this month killed more than 170 people.
Regime troops torched Lay Twin Zin village near Pazi Gyi on Saturday, destroying around 200 houses.
“Even the village monastery was burned. All the houses have gone,” Ko Bala Gyi of Ma Lae People’s Defense Force told The Irrawaddy.
He said 16 Lay Twin Zin villagers were abducted during the raid and their fate is unknown.
The troops then raided about 3km away burning around 40 out of 150 houses before village defense forces extinguished the fires after the troops left, according to residents.
“The arsonists are stationed between Lay Twin Zin and Pazi Gyi and shelling other villages,” a resident told The Irrawaddy.
An estimated 20 soldiers were killed and four resistance fighters injured in the area on Tuesday, according to Ko Bala Gyi.
By February, around 47,700 houses in Sagaing Region had been burned by junta forces, almost 80 percent of the total of civilian houses destroyed nationwide, according to the independent Data for Myanmar group.
