16th-17th June, 2021

 

Images of the torched Kinma village in Magwe Region have shocked the country. Individuals and groups, including the NUG and embassies, blamed the junta troops for burning downing 200 homes in a village of about 1,000 people and 230 houses, killing at least two elderly couple in their 80s and many livestock. The junta-controlled media broadcasted that the village was set on fire by PDF militants and the junta’s supporters are sharing photos of police rescuing elderly people in support of junta’s claim. However, netizens responded that those were not from Kinma but from the clashes in Rakhine State.

The KNU announced that it will set up a committee of inquiry to investigate allegations that the KNDO has killed 25 construction workers. Khit Thit Media released a footage in which the junta-appointed local administrators ordering villagers in Ayeyarwaddy region to send new recruits to form a militia. 

In Demoso, Karenni State, a temporary ceasefire has been reached between the local KNDF and the junta troops council due to the mediation of religious leaders and some local armed groups in order to help tens of thousands of IDPs in the region. Rescuers said there were at least seven bodies strewn across the town. Some bodies were chained and cremated.

On 16 June, the local administrator of Ward 13 in Hlaing Tharyar Township, Yangon, was assassinated near his home. The junta troops have arrested seven youths, including a second-year student who took the photo of the dead body, for sharing the photo on Facebook. The BBC reports that they will be tried by a military tribunal as the township has been declared martial law. On the same day, the junta-appointed township education officer was assassinated on 16 June in Yangon’s Kyauktan Township. He was accused of reporting the CDM civil servants to the junta, RFA reported. The Irrawaddy reports that the local administrator of Thandada Ward in Yangon’s Sanchaung Township was also shot on 17 June. Since the coup, at least eight local administrators have been assassinated in Yangon alone.

A condominium under construction belonged to the junta-appointed Minister Thet Thet Khaing was blown up in Yangon yesterday, Myanmar Now reported. The Yangon People's Defense Force took responsibility of the attack, saying that they had planned for a month and used three C4 typed bombs. A CCTV footage of an unidentified man throwing a bomb inside the NLD headquarters’ compound in Yangon on the night of 16 June has been circulating on the internet. No one was injured in the incident.

The Arakan Army, which has a ceasefire with the junta in Rakhine State, handed over six prisoners of war to the junta on 17 June, according to Narinjara. Another 17 prisoners of war were also released in Buthidaung Township, the Irrawaddy reported. These prisoners exchange happened after the releasees of 10 AA supporters, including the brother and sister of AA Commander-in-Chief General Tun Myat Naing on 9 June.