Bangkok: Recent days have seen an uptick in fighting between the Myanmar army and anti-junta rebels, with residents of one village reporting on Saturday that more than a dozen people were killed in a single raid.
Since the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government in February 2021 and launched a brutal crackdown on dissent that has resulted in thousands of deaths, deadly violence has engulfed Myanmar.
The "People's Defense Force" (PDF) militias that oppose the coup as well as long-standing ethnic rebel armies that hold swaths of territory close to the nation's borders are being fought by the junta.
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Under the condition of anonymity, a senior military source told AFP that fighting had recently taken place in the states of Kachin, Karen, and Kayah as well as the Sagaing and Magway regions. Two residents of Sone Chaung village in Sagaing, a hub of anti-junta protests, told AFP that 14 people were killed by the army in an early-morning raid on Friday.
The two villagers, who requested anonymity, claimed that the army had come looking for leaders of the PDF.
The bodies were discovered scattered over a large area, apparently shot or cut down as they attempted to flee. One reported that six of the dead were PDF fighters, but the remaining victims were civilians.
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On condition of anonymity and without elaborating, another military source confirmed that "fighting and raids of PDF places in Sagaing and Magway regions are ongoing these days."
Journalists have a very difficult time getting access to the affected areas, making it difficult to independently confirm local accounts.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month advised Southeast Asian ministers to apply pressure to the junta to end the conflict and restore democracy.
But up until now, neither economic nor diplomatic pressure on the generals has had any impact. The junta has promised to conduct new elections after claiming that Suu Kyi's party won those elections with fraud. However, it has already postponed elections once and hinted last week that it might extend the state of emergency and do so again.