On April 18, at 8:00 a.m. this morning, 45 villagers from Saifara Village, located between Kamai Township and Phakant Township in Kachin State, were abducted in four cars by the military as human shields.
KIA’s ground troops confirmed that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) intercepted the attack to the military troops who arrested those people, and rescued the people and brought them back.
“They entered the village and used 45 villagers as human shields and came with 4 cars. When we returned fire, the front car was damaged. The soldiers ran up and down,” a KIA ground officer told MPA.
The local villagers said that “an 18-year-old woman was killed and five men and women were injured, among those captured by the Military as the human shields during the battle”.
The local villagers also said that those who were injured were taken to a nearby hospital and are receiving medical treatment.
“All were released. A car exploded and a girl from our village was killed after being hit by a bullet. Two men and three women were also seriously injured. They were sent to a nearby hospital,” a villager told MPA.
This column of the SAC military was a column of battalion Kha Ma Ya (11), and that column was intercepted with the mine attack by the battalion (44) of the KIA, and during cornered combat, the casualties of both sides are not yet known.
“In Kachin State, the two-sided fighting between the armed revolutionary groups and the military council takes place often, and on April 17th, yesterday, the KIA attacked and captured a joint camp of Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA) under the Military Council and the military troops,” the KIA ground troops also claimed.
In Kachin State, the daily clashes between armed resistance groups including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Military Council take place, and there are daily shootings and many local people are fleeing from the war.