Weekly update on Human Rights situation in Karen, Mon States & Tanintharyi Region since the attempted coup [Fourth week of January 2022]

January 31, 2022

A weekly update by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) on the situation on the ground. Summary data includes Mon State, Karen State and Tanintharyi region.

Weekly Overview

Karen State

According to relief and health service providers on the ground, an estimated 27 villages in southern Kawkareik have been evacuated due to military offensives and airstrikes against the Karen National Union and local People’s Defense Forces leading to over 20,000 IDPs.
Junta forces raided and eradicated a village called An-Pha-Gyi village in the southern part of Kawkareik Township on January 22 at 2:30 pm. Two men and four women native villagers were arrested and taken away by the troops.

Mon State

Residents in Mon State, Bee Lin Township reported that the military junta has cut off food supplies to Win Maung and Mae Wai villages for seven months. They are facing serious food shortages.
Family members confirmed three young villagers detained on January 24 are still missing. The men were driving when they stopped, beaten and arrested by soldiers near Taung Kalay Village Tract, Kyaikmaraw Township.

Dawei Region

Seven youth from a free clinic located in Wae-Kyun-Nyaung-Yan Ward were abducted by the junta on 24 January 2022.
On 27 January, junta sponsored armed forces, Pyu Saw Htee group shot and killed a former NLD member, a resident of Parada village, Nabule area, Yebyu Township.

Analysis

Arbitrary arrests took place with increasing frequency across the last week. Two youth, including an older man, were arrested by junta security forces on 19 January at a rubber plantation in Yele In village, Pakari village tract, Dawei. The family members of the victims have been unable to get in contact with them since they were arrested. A total of four detainees, including two Civil Disobedience Movement activists from Kanpauk, Yebyu Township, Tanintharyi Region, were sentenced to two years in prison by the Junta’s Dawei Prison Court on January 28, according to the Dawei Political Prisoners Network (DPPN). As of January 2022, more than 950 people had been arrested since the military coup and 69 had been killed in Tanintharyi Region.

Civilians fleeing worsening violence in Karen State are being directly targeted by the Burmese junta. A 45-year-old woman is among the over 20 000 newly displaced people who said, “Even if I could go back to my home, I think nothing will be left. I heard the junta burnt our village. They stole our ox, and destroyed our livestock. We have to start from the beginning again.” Her sentiments speak to the feelings of many forced to abandon everything for their safety.

Local villagers said they face difficulty living due to the military clearance operations against the People’s Defense Forces (PDF) in Brigade No.4 in areas controlled by the Karen National Union. On the morning of 25 January, approximately 200 junta troops entered Khaung Daing Pyin Village, Myin Mat Tat Village, Dawei Township to search for PDF soldiers. A villager who managed to escape said, “I was terrified of being shot. Some innocent people were fired at while working on their farms. That is why I do not dare to go to my farm,” said a 60-year-old villager whose plantation is located outside of the Myin Mat Tat village. Junta forces are continuing to build building bunkers on and surrounding the campus of the Basic Education High School No. 1 and 3 in Hpa-An, Karen State.

Amidst all of the brutality being waged by the junta, the Spring Revolution is succeeding. Evidence of the junta’s paranoia was made especially clear when the junta dispersed leaflets threatening civilians not to join planned Silent Strike on the anniversary of the attempted coup in Hpa-an, Karen State. According to locals, the General Administration Department and Army officers threatened that participants would be imprisoned and property confiscated if their shops closed.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under Analysis, News