It was another devastating week across Southeastern Burma where the junta violated international law again by deploying an airstrike in Karen State that claimed the life of a young mother and her two-year-old son, according to the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM).

The organisation said that more than 3,500 villagers have fled their homes due to recent armed clashes in southern Karen State, at least another 3,000 fled in Tanintharyi and 670 households fled their homes in Mon State.

HURFOM says the situation demands a response beyond words of condemnation. Action, which includes a referral of the junta to the International Criminal Court, is crucial for ensuring justice for the people of Burma.

Recently displaced people who fled their homes due to renewed fighting in Wakone Village, Dawei, reported that their villages had been routinely set on fire. The junta is continuing to burn houses and threatening people to make them leave. “The junta entered the village on January 8, around 6:00 a.m. and a few minutes later, smoke billowed up from the village”, said a house owner who escaped the fighting.

Currently, at the time of reporting, the junta is patrolling Dawei East Village. More than 800 locals have already abandoned their homes.

A week-long armed clash between the junta forces and the joint forces of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and people’s defence forces in Taung Zun Village in Karen State’s Kyarinnseikyi Township, led to the deaths of at least fourteen innocent civilians. According to local Emergency Response Team sources, more than 3,500 villagers have fled their homes due to recent armed clashes.

The Mon State Junta Administration General Administrative Department (GAD) is conducting a census of Mon State’s townships in preparation for the election. HURFOM says the junta is trying to justify its poor attempts at holding elections which will not be free nor fair whilst still committing crimes of impunity.

Arbitrary arrests are also ongoing in the southeast of the country. According to a reliable source close to the junta’s Special Branch Police Force, the soldiers arrested 10 young women, four from Ye Town and six from Abaw Village and Kyar-tan Village, in Mon State’s Ye Township. They were tortured and examined at a military training camp. HURFOM reporters from the area later confirmed that the junta forces jailed four out of the 10 women initially detained. The victim’s family members have appealed for truth and justice.

HURFOM condemns the arrest and abduction of innocent civilians and the ongoing targeting of villagers unfairly caught in the crossfire of violence. It believes that the Burma Army is encouraged to commit atrocity crimes because it continues to face a lack of severe repercussions from the international community and called for sanctions on aviation fuel being sold to Myanmar and a global arms embargo to save innocent civilian lives.