SAGAING DIVISION – According to local relief assistance groups of Kanbalu, Pyu Saw Htee which is one of the junta back militias, was forcing more than 300 locals from five villages in Kanbalu to join their gang. However the locals didn’t want to join and they had to flee away from their homes. They are in need of assistance and support as they have left their villages for so long.
The villagers from the five villages where the junta-linked militia called Pyu Saw Htee are dominated, have been fleeing for nearly seven months as they don’t want to join Pyu Saw Htee. They require food, medicines and drinking water.
“The villagers left their homes and hide in the forest. Drinking water is not clean there. They can’t go back to their home as well. They are in trouble. Since it has been a while they have left their homes, they are facing difficulties” said a person who is helping displaced people in Kanbalu.
It was reported that the villagers from five villages such as Segyi where head of Pyu Saw Htee, U Watawa has been ruling, Ingyinmyaing, Ingyinsu, Myainhtharyar, Paykone, had fled their villages since October 2022 as they didn’t want to join junta’s Pyu Saw Htee.
He continued, “Pyu groups were entering the village. Then they forced villagers to join their gang. When villagers didn’t want to join, they drove them away. So these villagers seek refuge in the camps as they don’t want to join the junta’s gang. Villagers from other villages had no place to go. So they had no choice and had to join Pyu Saw Htee gang even though they don’t want to do so.”
Currently junta’s light infantry battalion (361), (368) and Pyu groups were raiding Kanbalu region with forces and burning down the villages, there has been raising in the numbers of refugees and they are badly in need of a lot of assistance.
According to the relief assistance groups, in Kanbalu, there are more than one hundred thousand (100,000) displaced people who are fleeing their homes because of junta army’s aggressive raiding into the villages, battles conducted by the army, various pressure and threats of the junta.