Soldier Killed By Shot: Myanmar Military Regime Attacks Hundreds Of Buildings, Including Churches With Artillery

A building catches fire in an artillery attack in Thantlang, Chin State. (Source: Chinland Post via Mynmar Now)

JAKARTA - The United States is concerned and condemns the Myanmar military regime, when hundreds of buildings, including Christian residences and churches, were targeted by brutal attacks last week.

"We condemn such brutal acts by the Myanmar regime against people, their homes and places of worship, which demonstrate the regime's total disregard for the life and well-being of the Burmese people", the US State Department said in a statement on Sunday, calling for the violence to end. as reported by Reuters on November 1.

Myanmar's military regime forces opened fire on Thantlang City in the mostly empty western Chin State on Friday, causing fires that destroyed more than 160 of the city's 2,000 homes.

The attack came after a junta soldier was shot dead at 9:30 a.m. by the Chinland Defense Forces (CDF), which had been monitoring the situation in Thantlang after members of a local resistance group said they saw him looting a shop.

In retaliation for the killing, the armed forces of the junta occupying the area fired at least 10 artillery shells into the city. Within an hour, several soldiers had arrived at the scene where the soldier was killed, then started burning houses for no reason, a CDF spokesman said.

A building catches fire in an artillery attack in Thantlang, Chin State. (Source: Chinland Post via Myanmar Now)

"They walked into the city at around 10:30 am and set fire to houses at random", a spokesman for the Thantlang branch of the CDF told Myanmar Now.

"By 5 p.m., at least 40 homes had caught fire, with the fire continuing to burn through the night".

A man who lives near Thantlang told Myanmar Now smoke was billowing from the city area on Friday night. Meanwhile, by 9 a.m. Saturday, the fire had been extinguished but the houses were still smoldering, according to news outlet Zalen.

The Thantlang CDF recorded about 160 houses destroyed and was at the time of reporting still informing homeowners, a spokesman for the group said.

Not only homes, the Church on the Rock, a Presbyterian church, and a building connected to the Thantlang Baptist Church, the city's largest congregation, were also burned in the shooting, the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) said in a statement late Friday.

Meanwhile, the international non-profit organization Save the Children also reported that their local office in Thantlang was destroyed in the fire.

Nearly all of Thantlang's 8,000 residents were displaced after a military offensive that destroyed 18 homes and a government building in September. It was also seen as retaliation against the public and resistance, following an attack by the CDF and the Chin National Army on a junta base that reportedly killed around 30 soldiers.

Thousands of civilians displaced from Thantlang have taken shelter in villages along the India-Myanmar border, with others crossing into India's Mizoram State.

Myanmar military illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Haruno Sakura from Team-7)

At least three people, including two elderly women, are known to have remained in Thantlang after the others fled. Myanmar Now was unable to reach them on Friday after the military shelling.

In their Friday statement, CHRO reported that more than 20 children and their teachers had been living in the orphanage located at the entrance of Thantlang, keeping them trapped there.

"The widespread destruction of civilian property, carried out recklessly and not justified by any military necessity, constitutes a war crime and a grave violation of international humanitarian law", said Salai Za Uk Ling of CHRO in a statement.

Meanwhile, Salai Issac Khen, the former city minister of Chin State under the administration of the National League for Democracy (NLD) that was ousted in Myanmar's February 1 coup, condemned Friday's shooting in a Facebook post, blaming the military for the destruction after rumors circulated, the residents of Thantlang were somehow responsible for the fire.

"It is not easy to build a house in the hills of Chin. The Chin people have no reason to burn their own houses", he wrote.

On Sunday, the mouthpiece of the junta's Global New Light of Myanmar accused PDF of burning houses in Thantlang and committing "terrorist acts". Military council spokesman General Zaw Min Tun also said in a statement on Sunday that the local PDF pushed by the Shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and living "under the protection of the people", had ignited the fire and that the military was unable to extinguish it.

"The military council will go down in history as being responsible for the fire in Thantlang today", wrote Salai Issac Khen, urging all members of the ethnic Chin military council to "resign immediately".

About 200 soldiers from the military's 11th Light Infantry Division and 269th Light Infantry Battalion based in Chin State's capital, Hakha, have been stationed on a hill overlooking Thantlang, according to the CDF.

"We will retake our city", said CDF spokesman Thantlang.

To note, the Myanmar military regime deployed thousands of troops to northwestern Myanmar, including Chin State and the Sagaing and Magway regions, earlier this month. The move appears to be preparation for a concerted push to crush the resistance movement that has taken heavy casualties to the junta's army.

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