Burma Army Shoots Villagers, Killing A Child, Injuring Others
During the attacks, aid efforts for victims were hampered by the Army, said an MP.
By Network Media Group
May 21, 2019
Shooting from the soldiers of Burma Army killed a ten-year-old girl and injured five other children and adults at a village in northern Rakhine State.
“I saw soldiers randomly shooting (at people). Villagers fled when the soldiers opened fire,” said a local that wished to remain anonymous.
Military personnel used heavy and light weapons on panic-stricken villagers after arriving in Kyauktaw township in 7 military trucks on the evening of May 19. Later, as many as 50 trucks were brought in. They left the next morning.
Ma Athein Chay was killed after being shot in the head during the attack. Three-year-old Maung Khaing Lin Htay, two children aged ten and eleven, twenty-eight-year-old Daw Ma Aung and a sixty-year-old man were also injured.
The local said Ma Athein Chay’s brother managed to escape the massacre.
The boy reported that the soldiers shouted “enemy, enemy…shoot at them” before they opened fire.
Ma Athein Chay’s body was returned the next morning by the Army.
Soldiers robbed a chicken farm in the village, stealing hundreds of poultry said the local.
“Now there only forty chickens left in the farm.”
In Marlar village, about a mile from where Ma Athein Chay was killed, the Army fired mortars injuring 5 villagers and damaging a Buddhist monastery and several homes.
“A mother and her 3 children were hurt after shells landed in our village,” said a resident. A child struck in the back with shrapnel was transferred to the Sittwe hospital and is in critical condition.
A sixty-year-old man injured during the bomb attack hid in the village until he was rescued the next day.
MP Tun Win for Kyauktaw township told NMG aid efforts for victims were hampered by the Army during both attacks.
“Nobody dared to go there when the shooting was happening!”
A river route to the village was blocked by navy boats that fired at anyone who tried to approach the waterway, Tin Win said.
Attempts by NMG to reach Tatmadaw’s True News Information team went unanswered.
The Arakan Army (AA), fighting with the Burma Army in northern Rakhine and southern Chin State, reported no clashes in the area at the times when the Burma Army (Tatmadaw) attacked villagers.
Yet, on the same day as the attacks, nearly 3,000 people, including monks, protested against the war in Rakhine State. The protesters demanded the Army to release civilians that are in detention, justice taken for extrajudicial killings and for the safe return of over 30,000 villagers displaced by the conflict.
