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

HURFOM: 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.

Karen State

• Junta troops continued patrolling around Hpa-an township and are torturing, looting, and arresting local civilians. Soldiers and police raided a house on Aung Nang-1 Road in Hpa-an, at 9:40 PM on 2 February.
• Airstrikes deployed by the military junta in the early morning of 5 February killed six civilians and injured two. 

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

Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas [Third Week of January 2022]

HURFOM: Over the last week, fighting in Karen State led to increased displacement as over 250 villagers were forced to flee to areas controlled by the Karen National Union. The indiscriminate firing targeted innocent villagers in the midst of uncontrolled attacks by the military junta.

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Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas [Second Week of January 2022]

HURFOM: 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.

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Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas [First Week of January 2022]

HURFOM: 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. Amid worsening hostilities and clashes between the junta and armed groups, HURFOM documented 700+ IDPs in Kawkareik Township, Karen State & 100+ in Dawei region.

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Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas [Last Week of December]

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 Dawei Region.

The end of December in HURFOM target areas of Mon State, Karen State and Dawei was met with more violence being deployed by the military junta. Arbitrary arrests, indiscriminate firing and relentless assaults on civilian rights persisted.

At least four local youth were reportedly arrested in Myaing Kalay, Hpa-an, Karen State between 27 and 28 December. Soldiers and police lifted their motorcycles into their trucks. Sources expressed that they felt more women were being targeted by the regime. Another young man was arrested by junta military forces on December 29 at Thida Road in Dawei, Kanyon Ward. According to a local resident, Ko Kyaw Naing was arrested at his home around 3 pm. Two army trucks parked in front of his residence. Troops were mixed in civilian clothes and full uniform. He was abducted by four soldiers and forced to get in one of the trucks after the forces raided his home.

According to family members, five villagers from Sakhangyi village, Long Lone Township, Dawei who have been detained since December 26, have been missing. The missing detainees are Ko Kyaw Nee, a former administrator from the National League for Democracy (NLD) and his four colleagues. The home of U Zaw Zaw Htoo, a member of the State Parliament of Paung Township, Mon State who escaped arrest, was seized by the junta military troops and township General Administration Department on December 22. U Zaw Zaw Htoo, a State Hluttaw representative from Paung Township Constituency No. 2, is currently on the run like other NLD former members. A group of soldiers had broken into his house and destroyed his properties.

Fighting broke out between the junta’s battalions and the Karen National Liberation Army (of KNU) Brigade 6 in Dalee village, located between Kyainnseikyi and Tampayar village between 8 and 9 AM on December 31. Consequently, at least 60 households, an estimated 240 local villagers fled to the deeper Brigade No. 6 of the KNU’s administration areas.As a new year begins, HURFOM reinstates our calls for an immediate cessation in fighting and for the military junta to be held accountable for their crimes.

Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas [Fourth Week of December 2021]

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 Dawei Region.

ANALYSIS

HURFOM is extremely concerned over the increasing number of atrocities being committed by the military junta across Burma. Over the last week, violence in Karen State fuelled by arbitrary arrests and abductions of rights defenders and politicians in areas controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU), led to thousands of civilians fleeing uncontrolled horrors. 

“At the time of reporting, at least 30 indiscriminate artillery shells were fired at our villages. No one dares to live in the village now” said a recently displaced person. 

The KNU released a statement following the attacks appealing for humanitarian aid and calling for the Burmese Army to immediately withdraw their troops. HURFOM Program Director, Nai Aue Mon, said in an interview: “Villagers, including innocent women and children, are being forced to flee from their homes because of artillery shells being fired by the military junta.”

On 24 December, the junta launched airstrikes in Lay Kay Kaw, Myawaddy township, Karen State. According to local sources, over villagers in Min Let Pan and Phalu fled to the Thai side of the border overnight seeking refuge. The Thai Border authorities assisted in transporting the war-affected refugees from the Burmese side of the border with vehicles near the Thai border and sent them to temporary resettlement sites.

Calls were also amplified by the International Karen Organisation (IKO) for sanction aviation fuel, arms and gas revenue. IKO called for the urgent implementation of new targeted strategic sanctions on the Burmese military in response to escalating attacks against civilians in Karen State.

Arbitrary arrests have not relented, not even during the holidays. Former Karen State Chief Minister Nang Khin Htwe Myint was sentenced by a Hpa-an Township court on December 22 to three years in prison for rigging the election, and now she has been convicted a total of 80 years in prison, according to sources close to Hpa-an Court.

Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas [Third Week of December 2021]

Weekly update on situation in Karen, Mon & Dawei Region since the attempted coup:

• 7+ Arrested
• 6+ Detained
• 2+ Injured
• 0 Killed

More civilian abductions are taking place by the junta with many missing & being held in unknown locations. HURFOM amplies calls for their release.

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Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas [Second Week of December 2021]

It has been a difficult year for the people of Burma who have had every aspect of their lives made much more difficult by the military junta. Business owners over the last week were targeted as the regime increases its targeting of those on suspicion of being affiliated with various civilian armed groups across the country.

Ko Pyae Sone Oo, age 40 and the owner of Rice & Curry from Naught-Lae Ward, Myeik was killed in the junta’s detention centers on December 6, according to a family member who were called to pick up the body at a cemetery. Soldiers arrested and detained him on accusations of being a supporter of the People’s Defense Forces on 4 December. 

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Weekly Update in HURFOM Targeted Areas (First Week of December 2021)

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 Dawei Region.

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