A village in Kantbalu Township that was incinerated by an arson attack by junta troops in May. / Kyun Hla Activist Group
More than 60 civilians, including three children, in Sagaing Region’s Kantbalu Township were arrested by a combined force of Myanmar junta military and pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias in the past two days, according to local residents.
More than 100 regime troops from Light Infantry Battalion-361 and the militia raided Inn Ma Village on Tuesday and arrested 13 residents who were farming nearby, according to Kyun Hla, a local charity and information group. Three boys—aged 12, 13 and 15—were among the civilians arrested.
The Pyu Saw Htee militia looted the village during the raid, a spokesperson of the Kantbalu people’s administration said.
Inn Ma village is located just one kilometer from the base camp of Light Infantry Battalion-361 and, as a result, its residents are cautious not to stay in it for a long time, the spokesperson said.
“They were arrested while they were returning to the village from farming,” he told The Irrawaddy.
The regime column was stationed between Pay Kone and Inn Ma villages on Tuesday and then returned to its base camp on Wednesday. Five villagers from Inn Ma, including the three boys, were released that day. The fate of the other eight people arrested is unknown, local residents said.
Myanmar’s military has a long and well-documented record of using civilians as human shields, using child soldiers, detaining civilians for ransom and forced conscription. These practices were partially reversed under quasi-civilian rule, but they have returned—and escalated—since the February 2021 coup, according to rights groups, resistance fighters, and residents of villages and towns targeted by the junta.
A second village in Kantbalu Township, Mait Ta Lin Kone, was raided early Wednesday morning by more than 50 regime troops from Light Infantry Battalion-363. They arrested 48 men between the ages of 23 and 60, local residents said.
“The villagers have been arrested for no reason,” a member of Kyun Hla activist group told The Irrawaddy.
A villager said the column arrived so swiftly in the early morning that residents did not hear it approaching. “The whole village ran, and we were lucky that we weren’t [all] arrested,” the villager said.
Thirteen of those arrested were released on Wednesday evening and the remaining 35 are being held at the battalion’s base camp, local residents said. They said they do not know what is being done to the 35 detained men.
Kantbalu and adjacent Kyun Hla townships are in the resistance stronghold of Sagaing Region. The Pyu Saw Htee militias are very active in the townships and they 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.
The militias have been formed over the past two years by influential monk U Wasawa of the ultranationalist Association for Protection of Race and Religion, known locally as Ma Ba Tha, to counter anti-regime People’s Defense Forces.
Combined forces of Pyu Saw Htee and regime troops have been raiding villages in both townships. They loot the villages before torching them, local residents say.