Hundreds of students and staff were caught in the fighting when a week-long battle for Kale Township in Sagaing Region spread to the district-level university on Monday.
Local resistance forces say they managed to rescue 140 of the 500 students, lecturers and staff at Kale (Kalay) University after junta forces based on the campus deployed airstrikes.
“They are in our custody and we are providing them with medical as per human rights practice,” a member of a local People’s Defense Force (PDF) told The Irrawaddy on Monday.
Details of the battle in Kale Township and its university would be released soon by groups involved in the fighting, he said.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said: “We received a report from members of the public that around 100 so-called PDF troops entered Kale University around 7.30 am [on Monday], and arrested lecturers, students and staff.”
He said regime forces had rescued 285 lecturers, students and staff during a clash with resistance fighters, who retreated to the east of the university.
Junta forces would carry out a rescue mission if it was found that more people from the university had been detained by the PDF, he added.
The junta spokesman said 10 civilians had been killed and 30 injured by artillery during the fighting in Kale Township, adding that both regime and PDF forces had suffered casualties.
One Kale resident told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday: “We live in the town and we can hear the gunfire. We can’t flee as we are surrounded by the battlefield. Only the town center is not yet affected by the fighting. Yesterday, there was fighting at Kale University, which is 14 km from Kale Town. The situation is terrible. People who venture out in the town are being shot. Some were hit this morning.”
Combined revolutionary forces seized junta outposts in three villages occupied by troops under the Kale Regional Operations Command between Feb. 21 and 23, according to the PDF.
Fifteen junta soldiers including a captain were killed, and 10 guns, one rocket-propelled launcher, grenades and bullets were seized in the fighting, said resistance forces.
Kale lies on the border of Chin State and is situated upstream from Monywa and Mandalay on the Myittha River. It is also an important town for border trade with India via the Kale-Tamu highway.
