Thousands of residents of southern Kantbalu Township, Sagaing Region fled a junta raid amid the monsoon rain early on Wednesday morning, according to the locals.
A military column comprising over a hundred soldiers and members of pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias raided 14 villages including Thayet Gaung Village in Kantbalu Township at 2 a.m., firing weapons and forcing thousands of residents to flee. A villager was killed by troops and Thayet Gaung was torched.
“We heard that some residents were arrested and forced to serve as guides and reveal the houses of PDF members in the village,” a representative of Infinity Group, local charity and information group, told The Irrawaddy.
Thayet Gaung has over 500 houses. Casualties resulting from the raid are not known yet, he added.
Local charity groups described the situation as an emergency, saying the fleeing residents were in need of tarpaulins, food and medicine.
“The residents are having trouble as they were forced to flee in the rain,” a Kantbalu resident told The Irrawaddy.
The regime unit involved, Light Infantry Battalion 361, has conducted frequent raids in Kantbalu. During Wednesday’s raid, troops looted villagers’ property, torched the villages and killed civilians, according to Kyun Hla, another local charity and information group.
Residents said there had been no clashes between local resistance forces and Myanmar junta troops in the area recently that could have prompted the raid.
Kantbalu and adjacent Kyun Hla townships are in the resistance stronghold of Sagaing Region. Pyu Saw Htee militias are very active in the townships and force village residents to undergo military training. There are at least eight Pyu Saw Htee villages in Kyun Hla Township, which shares a border with Kantbalu.
