1,000 Shan Villagers Flee Burma Army: Rights Group

18 March 2014

The Shan Human Rights Foundation has alleged that Burma Army operations in northern Shan State’s Nawnghkio Township caused 2,000 people from 11 villages to flee their homes, after about 1,000 soldiers from battalions 520 and 115 shot at and shelled the villages on March 1-2. A villager accused of being a Shan rebel “was interrogated and beaten so badly that many of his teeth were knocked out,” the group said in a press release Monday, adding that he has been held in police custody since. The troops left on March 5 and villagers returned to find their homes damaged and their livestock looted.