Locals said there were too many bodies to cremate.

Junta troops ambushed and killed 28 People’s Defense Force members in Sagaing Region’s Myinmu Township, witnesses told Radio Free Asia on Monday 24 September 2023.

The dead include 20 members of the Black Eagle defense force, five members of the Myaung Revolution Army, two members of People’s Security Group-Myinmu and a 14-year-old boy connected with the anti-junta militias, a People’s Security Group official told RFA Burmese.

A local who saw the bodies said that some were shot dead, but others died after their limbs were cut off.

“They were shot in their heads and chests and body parts were cut off,” said the local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisal.

“We were not able to cremate the bodies because there was not enough wood for the number of dead. They were buried by backhoe.”

In a video obtained by RFA, women and children were seen crying next to the mutilated bodies.

Residents said that the defense force soldiers killed were men from Myaung and Myinmu townships who joined the militias because they wanted to defend their villages after the February 2021 military coup.

Junta telegram channels said Saturday that the junta seized 10 guns and ammunition in Friday’s ambush.

The column of 70 troops who killed the defense force members occupied Myaung township on Saturday.

Calls to the junta spokesman for Sagaing Region, Tin Than Win, went unanswered.

From February 2021 to July 2023, there were 144 killings of five or more people across the country, and 1,595 people died, the shadow National Unity Government’s Ministry of Human Rights announced on 31 July.

The NUG, a shadow government formed of politicians ousted in the coup and other pro-democracy campaigners, did not specify whether the dead were civilians or defense force members.

Courtesy of Radio Free Asia