By Kantarawaddy Times
Junta soldiers looted the personal property of villagers and even went to the extent of removing the wooden boards and bricks from houses to construct barricades to repel attacks by resistance forces located outside the town in Karenni State.
“They have no food rations of their own and have to steal rice and other food from the people” including killing their livestock, a Ywarthit man said, wishing to remain anonymous.
“Soldiers don’t allow the civilians to sleep in their houses—they have to stay in the Buddhist monastery.” The army unit has occupied homes in Wan Haw and Myauk Pai wards in the town in Bawlakhe District. Some residents were allowed to return to get their belongings from their houses while others have been denied.
People were told to remove the Facebook app from their phones to block the flow of information from the town, he said, which the soldiers don’t want to leave for fear of attacks from outside Ywarthit. Six people were shot dead when they left the monastery without permission at the end of June.
The regime has sent hundreds of soldiers to attack units of the Karenni Nationalities People’s Liberation Front (KNPLF), which defected from the regime last month, but a coalition of Karenni armed groups fighting alongside the KNPLF has prevented the soldiers from crossing the Salween River south of the town.
