An armed group fighting Burma’s military regime announced it would restrict traffic on the road from Kalay in Sagaing Region to Rih in northern Chin State. Last Friday, the Mountain Eagle Defence Force (MEDF) said in a statement that civilian vehicles, including buses and trucks, would only be allowed to travel between 7:30 am and 5:30 pm for security reasons. According to the MEDF, the military fired on Hai Mual villagers travelling on the road at night. “No one was wounded by the shelling. God saved these people, so no one has been injured so far. However, it’s too dangerous…
Author: Editor
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are struggling to survive as the number of donors has dwindled, volunteers helping them in Paletwa Township have told Khonumthung News. According to a man in Sami, there is only one donor left to care for the nearly 10,000 people who have fled the fighting across southern Chin State. “Many organisations used to come to provide food rations to the IDPs, but now it is only the World Food Programme (WFP)…in both Sami and Paletwa towns every month.” The volunteer said they give rice, peas, cooking oil and salt, and nutritional powder for the children and…
Three men and a woman displaced by the war were wounded when regime forces fired upon Myet Pyin Kyel and the surrounding farmland around the village in Kanpetlet Township, southern Chin State last week. A volunteer helping displaced civilians said the soldiers entered the village and then attacked two bamboo huts housing farm workers with light and heavy fire. Three people were seriously injured, while another person suffered minor injuries, he said. The victims, aged between 50 and 70, are being treated at an unspecified medical facility. Another source, who is a member of a committee helping displaced villagers, told…
The Kalay People’s Defence Force reportedly detained three two civilians and regime Corp Min Zaw Oo, who was later shot dead when he tried to escape while they transported the men to their jungle camp. Acting on a tip-off, the armed group entered the BMB KTV in Kalay town, which also functions as a massage parlour, and abducted the army leader as well as Tun Tun, the manager of the Myanmar Economic Bank for Kalay District, and Nyein Khant Zaw, a junior clerk at 1pm on 10 December. Tun Tun Naing allegedly threatened the employees of his bank not to…
The military government sentenced Rev Thian Lian Sang to 23 years hard labour after finding the Chin Christian leader guilty of terrorism and sedition under Articles 49 (a) and 505 (a) of Burma’s penal code. A source familiar with his case told Khonumthung News on condition of anonymity that the junta sentenced him to three years on 15 June for sedition and 20 years on 7 December for terrorism. People who know Thian Lian Sang said the 42-year-old Christian leader, who worked for the Falam Baptist Church, never participated in the political movement against the military. His only crime was…
The exiled National Unity Government (NUG) has promised to take action if any of the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), some of which are under NUG’s command, violated its military rules after a video recently circulated showing a young woman being beaten and shot dead in broad daylight in Tamu town in Sagaing Region last Spring. In a statement, the NUG ordered PDFs to investigate this incident to find out if anyone from their respective groups was responsible for the breach of the military code of conduct. It stressed that they must follow military orders while fighting the military regime, which…
The Kyauktaw – Paletwa waterway was partially reopened by the military on 3 December after an informal ceasefire was agreed with the Arakan Army (AA) at the end of November. Citing security concerns, the regime had closed the waterway for three months after fighting with the AA resumed following the collapse of an earlier peace deal. AA leaders said at their recent sixth press conference that they had agreed to stop fighting out of concern for civilians who are prevented by the military from receiving essential supplies. During the embargo, residents of Paletwa ran out of fuel, rice, cooking oil,…
The regime’s armed forces have killed over 350 Chin nationalities and burned down more than 1,500 homes since last year’s coup, a rights group has found. “Chin State is the poorest ethnic state and the least developed…that’s why the deaths and destruction had such a negative impact. People have lost everything of material value,” says Salai Van Sui San, the deputy director of the Institute of Chin Affairs (ICA). The military has committed serious human rights violations in the state in western Burma and across the country, including attacks on civilians, sexual violence against women and the looting and destruction…
Japan’s Nippon Foundation has again played an important role in negotiating a peace agreement between the Arakan Army (AA) and the Burma Army (BA), which have been fighting each other for several years in southern Chin and northern Rakhine states. At the AA’s sixth press conference on 28 November, the group’s spokesperson Khine Thukha said that Mr Sasakawa, the chairperson of the Nippon Foundation, helped broker the new peace agreement. Sasakawa also mediated with the groups during the 2021 and 2020 ceasefires. Khine Thukha said they agreed to the peace deal with the welfare of the people in mind and…
A man was killed and his spouse injured when the couple stepped on a hidden landmine close to an army checkpoint near the Infantry Battalion 304 base in Matupi Township, southern Chin State, on 29 November. “Pu Ral Pan stepped on a hidden landmine when they were on their way to their cattle ranch and died an hour after the explosion. His wife sustained injuries to her legs,” said a man who wished to remain anonymous. The woman is being treated at Matupi Public Hospital, he said. The 56-year-old man worked for the government’s communications department in Matupi town and…