Security forces set ablaze a village in central Myanmar after clashing there with opponents of the ruling military, leaving at least two elderly people burned to death, several village residents said on Wednesday.
Burmese state broadcaster MRTV said that the blaze on Tuesday at Kin Ma, a village of about 800 people in the Magway region, was caused by “terrorists” and that media who reported otherwise were “deliberately plotting to discredit the military.”
Reuters was unable to independently verify the cause of the blaze.
Photo: Reuters
A military spokesman did not answer calls requesting comment.
All that remained of Kin Ma on Wednesday was about 30 houses, with about 200 homes reduced to piles of ash and bricks, several villagers who gave accounts of the incident by telephone said.
The blaze was large enough to be recorded by NASA’s satellite fire-tracking system at 9:52pm on Tuesday.
The villagers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that security forces set the fires after confronting opponents of the military and that at least two people were killed.
A 32-year-old volunteer assisting people displaced from the village said that the two people killed were elderly residents who had been unable to flee their home during the fire.
He said that some people returned to the village on Wednesday and found the bodies.
Most of the village’s residents remained in hiding in nearby forests, the villagers said.
MRTV said that 40 “terrorists” torched a house in Kin Ma, starting a fire that spread to 100 of the village’s 225 homes.
Myanmar has been gripped by violence and protests since the military overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, returning as the country’s outright rulers after a decade of tentative democracy and economic reform.
The overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, for alleged electoral contraventions, sparked protests almost daily in many parts of Myanmar, and ignited conflict between the military and rebel groups.
Photographs taken on Wednesday of the aftermath showed a thin haze of smoke above Kin Ma from white embers that smoldered on blackened ground. Burned planks of wood, sheet metal, bricks and cooking pots were scattered around, with only a few trees left standing. Some images showed animal carcasses.
“Reports that the junta has burned down an entire village in Magway, killing elderly residents, demonstrate once again that the military continues to commit terrible crimes and has no regard for the people of Myanmar,” the British embassy in Myanmar wrote on Twitter, quoting British Ambassador to Myanmar Dan Chugg.
Human rights groups have accused Burmese forces of burning hundreds of villages in 2017, during an offensive that drove about 700,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.
Security forces have denied setting fires and in some cases have blamed Rohingya for doing so.
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