Junta infantry beat five civilians to death during raids on six riverside villages in Mandalay’s Madaya and Singu townships this week, according to resistance forces and locals.
The bodies of three men were discovered dumped near Tha Hpan Daunt village in Madaya while the other two were found near Kyet Tu Yway village in Singu following junta raids on Oct. 25, a Kyet Tu Yway resident said on Friday.
“We found signs of torture on their bodies. They were killed by blunt-force trauma to their head,” a Singu resistance member said.
Sources identified one of the victims as U Kyaw Win, a resident of Thea Inn village who was arrested by junta troops during the raid.
The identities of the four other victims were still unknown, Singu residents said.
Around 150 junta troops travelled upstream from Mandalay on the Ayeyarwady River to raid two villages in Madaya township on Oct. 25. The column then moved on to Ywar Thar Yar village, a pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia base in Singu.
Junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee militia torched at least five houses in Madaya township, resistance forces from Madaya said.
They then burned down a monastery, clinic and five houses in Kyet Tu Yway village in Singu, according to residents there.
Thea Inn and Kyet Tu Yway villages had been raided by the same junta column a week earlier on Oct. 18, a villager from Thea Inn reported.
“This was the second time this month that they have destroyed our village”, he said.
Singu’s Kyet Tu Yway has also been repeatedly torched by junta infantry since the 2021 military coup, according to residents.
“They [junta troops] have destroyed our village seven times. They thought we would stop participating in the revolution if we lost all of our houses and belongings, but they were wrong,” a resident of Kyet Tu Yway said.
At least 53 houses in Thea Inn and 17 houses in Kyet Tu Yway were incinerated on October 18, residents and resistance forces said.
According to Data For Myanmar, an independent group that monitors arson attacks, junta troops had burned down nearly 1,350 houses across Mandalay Region as of July 31.
