More than 10,000 residents of Kantbalu Township, Sagaing Region, have been displaced by Myanmar’s junta and allied Pyu Saw Htee militias raids this week.
Around 200 junta soldiers and militia allies raided southern Kantbalu on Tuesday after they killed six civilians during raids in late August.
Kantbalu-based Artillery Battalion 6006 destroyed many villages with shelling, displacing residents who are exposed to poisonous snakes in the forest, the Infinity charity told The Irrawaddy.
There were 11 snakebite patients and two deaths in Kantbalu Township in August, according to the charity Kyun Hla.
The group said the district is repeatedly attacked by junta troops, meaning residents shelter in forest huts and continue their agricultural work. The lack of medicine leaves them vulnerable to poisonous snakes, the group said.
Junta troops looted Inn Lae Gyi village and torched homes on Tuesday and they torched Lay Hla and Mying Thar Yar villages on Wednesday.
“Not long after the first troops left, different soldiers arrived and many residents fled again,” a Kantbalu resident said.
The troops returned to their base on Wednesday but residents are still sheltering in forests and they are in urgent need of food and medicines, the charities said.
