Key Event Details

• Location of Incident:

• Multiple villages in Khin-U township (ခင်ဦး မြို့နယ်), Sagaing region (စစ်ကိုင်း တိုင်းဒေသကြီး)

• Date/Time of Incident:

• 18-21 November 2022.

• 2000 local time.

• Alleged Perpetrator(s) and/or Involvement:

• The Myanmar Military (no further specification could be identified at this time).

• Myanmar Witness’ Conclusions:

• From 17-21 November 2022, more than 70 SAC soldiers allegedly entered Khin-U (ခင်ဦး) township from Ye-U (ရေဦး) town with three vehicles. The Hero Army made up of Khin-U forces and allies attacked the SAC armed forces (source redacted for security reasons).

• Allegedly, SAC armed forces stationed in Shwe Yamin (ရွှေယမင်း) village entered Paung Hle Kone (ပေါင်းလှဲကုန်း) village and started burning multiple neighbourhoods on 18 November 2022 at 2000 hours. In the morning of 19 November 2022 at 0750 hours, another fire started in Paung Hle Kone. An estimated 200 houses were allegedly destroyed by the fire.

• During this two-day fire in Paung Hle Kone (ပေါင်းလှဲကုန်း) village, 80 rice paddy warehouses were reportedly burnt.

• SAC armed forces were reported to have marched through several other villages in Khin-U township and Shwe Bo (ရွှေဘို) township in Sagaing, burning hundreds of houses.

Summary 

On 17 November 2022 around 1300, a coalition of PDF forces reportedly ambushed SAC armed forces as they were marching from Ye-U (ရေဦး) town, through Kone Thar (ကုန်းသာ) village, Aung Thar (အောင်သာ) village, and Shwe Yamin (ရွှေယမင်း) village, towards the south-west of Khin-U township. The same source reported that the fighting lasted for about one hour. SAC armed forces allegedly entered Khin-U township in two convoys, one of which was the Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 66.

On 19 November 2022, Khit Thit Media reported that over 100 houses were burnt down in Paung Hle Kone village, which is home to over 500 households. The fire started at 2000 on 18 November 2022 and another fire started at 0750 on 19 November 2022 in the same village. The “Khin-U True Information” (ခင်ဦးမြို့နယ် သတင်းမှန်ပြန်ကြားရေး) page estimated that 200 houses were burnt. Later Khin-U local Guerrilla Force reported that the number of houses burnt was 136, and the fire and shelling reportedly killed two people. On the same day, 20 houses in Let Yet Kone (လက်ယက်ကုန်း) (Leik Ya Kone (လိပ်ရကုန်း)) village were reportedly burnt.

On 20 November 2022, two sources reported that over 80 rice paddy warehouses were destroyed in the fire in Paung Hle Kone village. Additionally, SAC armed forces reportedly marched into three other villages in Khin-U township – Shwe Kar (ရွှေကာ) village, Si Son (ဆီဆုံ) village and Let Pan Gyi (လက်ပံကြီး) village – and started burning houses at 1200.

On 21 November 2022 at 1045, SAC armed forces reportedly combined forces with Pyu Saw Htee forces in Ma Daung Hla (မဒေါင်းလှ) village, before marching to Saw Gyi (စောကြီး) village and In Gyin Pin (အင်ကြင်းပင်) village, which they then started burning.

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This spot report focuses on the events in Paung Hle Kone village due to the allegations of rice paddy warehouses being burnt down. The destruction of vital food supplies must be investigated further as it could represent a breach of international law.

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