Soldiers from Myanmar’s military government raided a village in the country’s central region, killing 19 villagers including four children and burning their bodies, independent media and a resident said Friday.
The killings on Wednesday in Nyaung Pin Thar village in Bago region’s Htantabin township may have been in retaliation for an attack by resistance forces opposed to army rule.
Reports of the killings, along with what were said to be photos and videos of the remains of the victims, also appeared in independent Myanmar media and social media on Friday, the same day a human rights monitoring group released a report charging that Myanmar’s military is deliberately carrying out atrocities, including beheadings, to instill terror in those fighting the army and in a public already dismayed by the military’s barbarity.
The rights group, Myanmar Witness, singled out an army unit nicknamed the Ogre Column for its brutality in the central region of Sagaing, which is considered part of Myanmar’s traditional heartland.
Myanmar Witness said its investigation of eight incidents between late February and early April found that at least 33 villagers were killed, 12 of whom were beheaded and two dismembered by the Ogre Column and other units.
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