- At least 22 people were slain at a monastery in Mayanmar’s Southern Shan State.
- There was a savage military crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.
- At least 2,900 individuals have been killed by junta soldiers in Myanmar since the coup.
On Saturday, at least 22 people were slain at a monastery in Myanmar‘s Southern Shan State, including three monks, while local rebel groups and the military-backed junta accused each other of carrying out a massacre.
Myanmar has been embroiled in political turmoil since military commander Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a coup in 2021, shattering any prospect that the Southeast Asian country of 55 million people would become a functioning democracy.
After the coup, there was a savage military crackdown on pro-democracy protestors, with citizens being slain in the street, abducted in nocturnal raids, and allegedly tortured in jail.
According to the advocacy group Aid Group for Political Prisoners, at least 2,900 individuals have been killed by junta soldiers in Myanmar since the coup, and over 17,500 have been jailed, the bulk of whom are still detained (AAPP).
The coup has also led in an increase in bloodshed between the military and a slew of resistance organisations aligned with long-established ethnic militias in a country plagued by insurgencies for decades.
Opposition organisations have regularly accused Myanmar’s military of carrying out mass executions, air strikes, and war crimes against civilians in conflict zones, claims the junta rejects despite mounting proof.
The newest atrocity claim surfaced last week in Shan State, Myanmar’s isolated and hilly northeastern region bordered by China, Laos, and Thailand.
At least 21 dead were piled up outside the Nan Nein Monastery, which is located in the village of Nan Nein in Pinlaung Township, according to photos and video released by the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF).
Several were observed wearing civilian clothing and suffering from multiple bullet wounds. There were also three bodies clothed in saffron orange robes, which Buddhist monks normally wear.
Bullet holes could be seen on the monastery’s walls in the footage given by the organisation.
The dead were observed lined up and slumped against the walls of the monastery, with pools of blood on the ground.
Both the KNDF and Myanmar’s military agree that combat occurred in the region, but two opposing narratives have developed in the aftermath of the monastery massacre.
“On March 11, the Burmese military killed three monks and 19 civilians,” KNDF spokesperson Philip Soe Aung told. “On March 12, our forces arrived at the monastery and discovered the bodies.”
This week, fierce combat erupted between local rebel groups and Myanmar’s military in an area near Nan Nein Village.
The military shelled and launched airstrikes directly at the village, causing inhabitants to seek cover in a neighbouring monastery, according to Soe Aung.
Myanmar’s junta spokesperson, Major General Zaw Min Tun, denied the military was to blame.
In comments published on Tuesday by the state-run newspaper Global Light of Myanmar, he blamed the violence at the monastery on “terrorist groups,” naming the Karen National Police Force (KNPF), the People’s Defence Force (PDF), and the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), an administration uniting ethnic groups in the state.
Zaw Min Tun claimed fighters opened fire after “the Tatmadaw (cooperated) with the local people’s militia and took security measures for the region.”
“When the terrorist groups violently opened fire… some villagers were killed and injured. (Others) ran away.”
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