The once bustling town of Thantlang was reduced to rubble by the Myanmar junta

The once-bustling town of Thantlang in western Myanmar, with a sign over its gatehouse proclaiming its inhabitants “not rich, but happy,” now lies in ruins after a spate of military strikes, arson attacks and air strikes.

Two years after the military seized power in a coup, the township in Chin state, on the border with the Indian state of Mizoram, is a skeleton of its former self. A resident who, like other FRG Burmese he spoke to for this report, declined to be identified for security reasons, said the once bustling center is now little more than a smoldering pile of ash.

“Our city is in absolute silence as all the residents have fled,” he said. “The only thing we hear from the area is gunshots and bomb explosions. It was a growing city before the military coup, but now it is a deserted ruin.”

Thantlang residents were quick to oppose the February 1, 2021 coup and by September of that year had formed several anti-junta People’s Defense Force groups to counter a military offensive in the region.

Clashes between the two parties broke out on September 19, 2021, during which a Christian religious leader was shot dead by junta troops while trying to put out fires in the municipality. Just over a month later, junta soldiers returned to Thantlang and burned two churches and at least 164 houses.

The September and October attacks sent more than 10,000 people, the entire population of Thantlang, fleeing to nearby villages and across the border into India, residents told RFA.

Since then, the army has returned several times to lay waste to the township, including on June 9, 2022, when soldiers torched the decades-old Thantlang Baptist Church and set houses on fire.

The Chin National Front claims that in the two years since the coup, the junta launched more than 140 airstrikes in Thantlang, destroying many of the city’s buildings, including the CNF headquarters. Thantlang’s PDF says that junta troops have fired more than 100 heavy artillery shells at the city in 2023 alone.

In February, a Thantlang PDF member documented the destruction in a video, which he shared with RFA, stating that “two-thirds of the city has been reduced to ashes due to arson (junta)”.

“The junta soldiers have raided and looted the remaining houses,” he said at the time. “They took whatever they wanted, including rice, food, household items and everything… There are only empty houses left there.”

Air raid on Khuabung village

The latest attack took place on Thursday, when two planes dropped bombs on the Khuabung village of Thantlang, about 8 kilometers (five miles) from the township headquarters. The airstrike killed at least eight residents, including children ages six and nine, and injured 20 others. It also set multiple structures on fire.

Salai Htet Ni, the spokesman for the ethnic Chin National Front, told RFA that Thursday’s attacks were unprovoked and intentionally targeted the civilian population.

“There is no member (of the armed resistance) in the place where the military junta dropped bombs, it was just a civilian village,” he said, calling the regime “a terrorist organization.”

“This attack is proof of what (junta chief, senior general) Min Aung Hlaing said in his Armed Forces Day speech, that he is ‘taking decisive action.’ They are only targeting innocent civilians and this is part of an attempt to wipe our Chin ethnic group off the face of the earth.”

The junta has not released any information about why it attacked Khuabung, and RFA’s attempts to contact Thant Zin, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesman for Chin state, went unanswered on Friday.

Salai Mang Hrang Lian, an official with the Chin Human Rights Group, told RFA that attacking civilians and burning religious buildings are “war crimes.”

“Nobody can target and attack innocent civilians, religious buildings like churches, hospitals and schools,” he said. “This is the universal code of military conduct and the basic international rule of law of armed conflict… The fact that the junta has committed war crimes becomes clear when considering the incidents in Thantlang.”

Chin state under attack

And while the destruction in Thantlang is significant, it is only a small part of what the military has done in Chin State and other parts of Myanmar.

According to Chin civil groups, there are currently around 60,000 people displaced by the conflict in Chin state, and around 50,000 others who have fled across the border into India’s Mizoram and Manipur states. The 60,000 inside Chin are part of an estimated 1.7 million refugees in Myanmar, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this month.

Junta troops have killed nearly 400 people, including civilians and PDF members, and destroyed more than 4,300 homes in Chin state since the coup, according to the Chin Affairs Institute. The Thai (Burma) Political Prisoners Assistance Association says Myanmar authorities have killed at least 3,194 civilians since taking power, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.

Speaking to RFA on Friday, a Thantlang resident who fled the fighting said he would never forgive the junta for what it did to his town.

“Thantlang was a big city before the military came to power,” he said. “Business was booming with many grocery stores and tea shops on either side of the road. It was a bustling city and people enjoyed living there. But it has been reduced to ashes and now all I have left is bitterness towards the junta.”

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.