Municipal staff and security forces handed out eviction notices to 10,000 households located in five wards of Pyinmabin village tract, Mingaladon Township, Yangon. The Ministry of Defense claims that the 560 acres of the Pyinmabin Industrial Zone in the village tract belong to it and not the families living on the land for generations. The eviction notice ordered that all buildings on the land must be removed by Nov. 18 or action will be taken in accordance with the law. The Pyinmabin village tract is home to vendors, industrial workers, and other laborers. “I cried when I received the letter. No one will save us. I don’t know what to say to this as I inherited this land from my parents,” a resident said.
Another resident said that the lands in San Thamadi, Myal Myan Aung, Gonyinni, Dharmapala and Myawaddy wards of Pyinmabin village tract are home to over 50,000 people and they have nowhere else to go. “We’ve been living here for 20 years. It could have been demolished long ago if it was owned by the military. But now, after the coup, our ancestral lands are being turned into military-owned lands,” a Dharmapala ward resident told DVB.
