According to local news sources, the junta troops started to burn down the village of Yaemyatni, Htilin Township, Magway Region, at 11:30 a.m. today, and about 300 houses are on fire and are still burning.
The military column with 70 forces left from the weapon factory (23), locally known as Ka-Pa-Sa-23, in Kyaw Town on April 1st and arrived at the village of Yaemyatni this morning (on 3rd) and is now burning the village, Aung Gyi, the company commander of the YRA (Htilin), told MPA.
“We went to shoot at them a few times in the morning. It was not a clash. The junta troops and the reinforcements coming from Weapon Factory 23 are jointly burning the village. Now it is bad. The fire is spreading house by house. At the moment, half of the village has already burned,” he explained.
There are about 600 houses in Yaemyatni Village, and soldiers, police, and Pyu Saw Htee militia are stationed at the Yaemyatni Police Station. The local defense forces have blocked off the food supply; residents did not live in the village anymore.
“Right now, they are burning the eastern and the northern parts of the village. The situation in the eastern part is not bad. The houses in the northern part of the village are also burning because they are so close to each other. Many houses have already burned. It doesn’t seem to put out the fire. So, all of them will burn,” a local resident near the village of Yaemyatni told MPA.
The regional defense joint forces launched a week-long battle to seize the Yaemyatni camp starting on December 4, 2023, and captured 80 percent of it. Due to the use of air strikes and the arrival of ground reinforcements, the defense forces had to abandon the camp and retreat.
Then, on December 18, due to a guerrilla attack by the local defense forces, the junta’s battalion commander, Aye Min, his personal assistant (PA), and the medic who came to the Yaemyatni camp from the 50th Light Infantry Battalion based in Gangaw were killed.
In addition to this, on March 13th, local defense forces ambushed 10 junta soldiers who came out to look for food from the Yaemyatni Police Station, resulting in the deaths of four soldiers.
