A woman was killed after stepping on a hidden landmine while searching for her missing husband, who’s the headmaster of a primary school in Paletwa Township located in southern Chin State. A man from Paletwa town, who requested anonymity, told Khonumthung News that Nang Lao Kham, 43, was searching for Khine Aye, who went missing a few days earlier in Abawng Thar while looking for bamboo shoots, on Wednesday 24 August. Other villagers warned Nang Lao Kham not to search for her husband alone in the jungle, but she went anyway. Khine Aye returned safely to her village the same…
Author: Editor
Civilians have fled to Paletwa town in southern Chin State after Burma Army (BA) Infantry Battalion 289 shelled their village during clashes with Arakan Army (AA) on Wednesday, 24 August. According to a local source who requested anonymity, 54 families from Abawng Thar are staying at the cyclone centre in Paletwa town and another 69 families are staying with relatives. “We cooked a vegetable curry for them last night and a bag and a half of rice,” he told Khonumthung News. Although almost everyone fled the village, some of the senior citizens were unable to leave because they couldn’t make…
The increased cost of fuel is causing additional hardship for the people of Chin State, who’re already struggling with a civil war that’s led to supply chain shortages and massive displacement in one of Burma’s poorest states. Many people can no longer afford to buy petrol, and even if they can or have to, they often cannot find it because many petrol stations no longer sell it. “There’s still some petrol in Chin State, but it’s really hard to find. Some shops have already closed down. This has affected many drivers and motorbike taxi drivers in Hakha,” a local told…
Rice and other essential goods have been unable to be delivered to Paletwa for weeks after the junta again blocked vital land and river transport to the town in southern Chin State due to renewed fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and the Burma Army (BA). “The cost of rice has gone up drastically in Paletwa and there’s no one selling it in the market. Costs of everything has risen, including cooking oil, meat, fish and fuel,” said a woman. Another woman from Paletwa said that a bag of rice, which used to cost $29, now costs $43. Since the…
Some petrol stations have stopped selling after fuel prices rose drastically in Kalay in Sagaing Region. According to a resident of the town, fuel pumps at major petrol station chains such as BOC ran dry on Wednesday, 17 August. “Although we have money, it is really difficult to buy gas in Kalay. I think we will have a serious fuel shortage in the future,” he told Khonumthung News on condition of anonymity. He could not find it at several stations, including one BOC, before finally finding a litre of petroleum at the third station he drove to. According to locals,…
Sham Amm, 59, was killed and a teenager wounded after the junta shelled a village in Hakha Township with artillery in an indiscriminate attack following fighting with local resistance forces. “She was cooking rice in her kitchen when a shell hit her house,” said a man from Neeyar Lawn, where the attack took place on 10 August. He said the teenager was in hospital. The shelling also disrupted electricity in the village of 170 houses. Fighting broke out near government housing and the district office in Hakha town around 8am before the army shelled Neeyar Lawn, which is about 7…
A Burma Army (BA) battalion commander and several other soldiers were killed in fierce clashes with four Chin resistance forces in Rihkhawdar, Chin State, on the border with India. Lt-Col Wai Myo Pai and four other soldiers were killed when the People’s Defence Forces (PDF) raided their hilltop camp in Ward 2 for five hours on 10 August. The regime has deployed its troops on two strategically important hills above Rihkhawdar in wards 1 and 2. “Four BA soldiers ran away and then surrendered to us. Many of their soldiers were also wounded in the clash,” the Zoland PDF spokesperson…
Junta forces torched over dozens of houses during heavy fighting with resistance groups in southern Kalay Township in Sagaing Region. A local, who asked that his name not be published, told Khonumthung News that Kyauk Pawte Church was one of 52 buildings burned down by the Burma Army (BA) in Thayar Kon from 2 to 4 August. About 1,500 people, mostly of Chin ethnicity, live in 300 houses in the village, which is located on the road from Kalay to Gangaw near Kalay Technical University. Most of the villagers were able to flee when the fighting started. Residents of Htauk…
The Burma Army (BA) detained 30 villagers and murdered three of them in southern Kalay Township when soldiers occupied their village following fierce clashes with the Kalay People’s Defence Force (PDF) in Sagaing Region. An officer from Kalay PDF’s Battalion 1 told Khonumthung News that the junta soldiers torched some houses in Thayar Kon after fighting near Kalay Technical University between 2 and 4 August. There are 300 houses and nearly 1,500 residents in Thayar Kon, most of whom are Chin nationalities. Most of the people managed to escape before the BA column intruded their village. According to the Kalay…
Chin resistance forces ambushed another regime vehicle convoy transporting 200 soldiers from Kalay town to the southern township of the same name in Sagaing Region. The Burma Army (BA) reportedly suffered many casualties in the fierce fighting, which lasted over five hours. “Our troops started attacking a BA military column between Kyun Chaung and Thayar Kon at 6:30am. Later, we ambushed them at the entrance of Thayar Kon,” an officer of the Kalay People’s Defence Force (PDF) said, explaining that the regime sent 15 bodies back to Kalay town, assuming as many as 20 BA were killed. PDF battalions 1,2,5,6…