Warning: Graphic Content
A junta column notorious for butchering civilians killed 11 men and desecrated their bodies during an 11-day rampage in Sagaing Region’s Taze Township, resistance members said.
The men were killed during attacks on villages in the township’s west.
Their dismembered bodies were discovered after the “Ogre” column shifted to the south of the township on Sunday.
Most of the 11 bodies had been decapitated, dismembered and disemboweled.
A member of the Taze Township People’s Defense Team said all but two of the victims were civilians. One oversaw a People’s Defense Team and another was in charge of administration in a resistance aligned village, the defense team member said.
Ko Htoo Khant Zaw, an information officer for resistance group People’s Defense Comrade in neighboring Ye-U Township, said most of the men had been decapitated.
“When we entered Taze on Sunday, we found the bodies in different locations. Eight or nine had been chopped up. They were beheaded and their limbs were cut off. Their abdomens were cut open, and their intestines were taken out,” Ko Htoo Khant Zaw.
Funeral rites have been performed for the victims.
“We cremated some of their bodies yesterday, and we are also cremating others today,” he told The Irrawaddy on Monday.
The butchering spree occurred after resistance forces temporarily seized a junta police station in the township. Members of People’s Defense Forces occupied the police station in the township’s Kan Htoo Ma village on Feb. 19, but were forced to withdraw two days later when the regime responded with airstrikes.
The Ogre column began attacking villages in western Taze Township on Feb. 21.
Most of the men it killed were between 25 and 50 years old.
The Ogre column comprises troops from Light Infantry Battalion 708 and Infantry Battalion 11. Based in Ye-U Township, it has been butchering civilians in Ye-U, Khin-U and Depayain townships since early January.
The 11-day rampage in Taze marked the first time it was reported committing atrocities in that township.
“The column calls itself a commando column, so we thought it was a real combat unit. It is not. It is notorious only because it brutally kills civilians it accuses of being members of People’s Defense Forces,” Ko Khant Htoo Zaw said.
“It rapes women and burns civilians alive,” he said, adding that it attacks villages at night.
Resistance groups in western Taze attacked the Ogre column with remote-controlled mines and drones, reportedly inflicting casualties. Three resistance fighters were also killed in clashes with the column, Ko Khant Htoo Zaw said.
Taze People’s Defense Team condemned the brutal killings and vowed to cooperate with the Ministry of Human Rights of the civilian National Unity Government to hold the perpetrators, including those who ordered the killings, accountable.
An estimated 30,000 residents from 40 villages in the west of Taze fled their homes during the attacks by Ogre column. Many had not returned to their villages after the column left western Taze on Sunday.
It is reportedly attacking villages in the south of the township. More than 3,000 residents of 10 villages in the area have already fled.
