Junta troops have arrested around 100 villagers in Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region and are still holding nearly 80 of them, locals told RFA.
They said about 30 soldiers entered Yae Nge village in Thayetchaung township and took the residents to a local monastery for questioning.
“All the people who were there were arrested. The troops opened fire and captured them when some people were running,” said a villager who did not want to be named for security reasons.
He said he did not know the names and ages of those arrested, but said the board was questioning men and women.
Other villagers speculated that the junta is interrogating them because there are People’s Defense Forces in neighboring towns.
RFA called Yin Htwe, the junta’s spokesman for the Tanintharyi region, but he said he knew nothing of the incident.
The Tanintharyi region, on the border with Thailand, has seen some of the fiercest resistance to rule by the Myanmar military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021.
There were more than 3,700 clashes in the region and nearly 400 deaths between February 2021 and February 2023, according to the United Nations Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The junta declared martial law in Palaw and Tanintharyi townships on February 2 this year and sent more troops to the area as armed clashes intensified and residents staged nonviolent “silent strikes” in Tanintharyi.
The junta has arrested nearly 21,500 civilians in Myanmar since the coup, according to the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners. More than 17,500 remain in custody.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.