This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
The junta has been slowly advancing along the western edge of Pekon Lake behind an increase in airstrikes, including from more advanced drones, as soldiers in the Karenni National Defense Forces, or KNDF, have sought to hold them off with dwindling supplies of ammunition.
Aung Zay Ya, the deputy leader of the Karenni Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian group, said he helped to treat the victims in Mine Pyat village. He sent photos and a video confirming the injuries. Family members of the young girl can be heard crying over the girl’s body.
In recent days, junta troops have forced the evacuation of dozens of families in the area. Aung Zay Ya and other members of the FBR and soldiers from the KNDF have helped villagers flee.
The day before the deadly strike, villagers from Phuk Khe, 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of Mine Pyat, began to make the slow trek on the region’s rough, hilly roads by motorbike, truck and tractor after an artillery strike there. No one was injured in the bombing.
Military troops are trying to dislodge KNDF fighters, who have held the territory for months. But here control is scattered. Revolutionary forces hold large stretches of land but have been unable to force military troops completely from the area. Main roads remain contested.
For many, the offensive couldn’t come at a worse time. Families faced the difficult choice of harvesting crops or potentially facing the military not shy about targeting civilians if the KNDF isn’t able to stop the advance. Rescuers said most chose to leave.
KNDF at growing disadvantage
The military’s goal, KNDF leaders said, is to secure access to a road that leads into the main northern artery into Loikaw, the capital of Karenni state.
The State Administrative Council, the junta’s official title, has retained control of Loikaw and a key regional airport. Since it ousted the civilian government in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the junta has faced widespread resistance to its rule, fighting rebel groups in several parts of Myanmar.
Although the battles happening now are taking place in what is now Shan state, the territory had been part of Kayah state until a previous military dictatorship changed the boundaries, which is why the KNDF has led the fight against the junta there.
Military troops were attacking from the south and the north from bases in shifting front lines. The commander of KNDF Battalion 31, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, said his soldiers have defended their positions for two months. But his troops are at a growing disadvantage, he said.
New drones from China are able to drop more powerful bombs and aren’t being disrupted by KNDF jammers as earlier iterations were.
Perhaps more worrisome is depleting supplies of ammunition. Though KNDF soldiers are now better supplied with assault rifles than the largely civilian force was when it was founded months after the 2021 military coup, bullets have lately been hard to come by as the junta has squeezed supply routes.
Three soldiers who were aiding the evacuation told RFA they had nine bullets among them.
Latest disruption to civilians
Villagers appeared to bear the latest disruption to their lives with a surprising level of equanimity after three years of war. Already, there are thought to be more than 150,000 internally displaced persons living in Kayah state.
Than Aye, 54, sat quietly in the shade of a giant banyan tree among several bags of freshly harvested rice carried in a KNDF supplied truck. She said she and her husband decided to leave after an airstrike the previous day. It was the fifth time they have been forced to move since the coup, she said, a broad smile under her straw hat.
In Phuk Khe, Seng Pan Song, 30, was still weighing how he might be able to salvage his corn crop as he prepared to leave the village. If he couldn’t return in 15 days, it and the money he invested in it would be lost.
Still, he said he had plenty of bags of rice to sustain his family in a new location. Before the war, he was a firefighter in Nang Shwe but joined the workers’ strike known as the Civil Disobedience Movement after the military reclaimed power from a civilian-led government, arresting many of its top leaders.
“I don’t want to live under the military system,” Seng Pan Song said.
Many of the villagers leaving did so with large sacks of recently harvested rice – some stacked up in truck beds, others precariously positioned on their laps as they drove their motorbikes.
Packing up base camp
Earlier on Oct. 31, the remnants of a KNDF base camp were being dismantled by a contingent of about 12 Battalion 31 soldiers. Troops removed a solar panel as a small contingent hunted village chickens with a net. At least six were put in a small bag for future meals.
Without control of the main roads, supplies are precious here and the KNDF can’t allow anything to go to waste.
The commander said Pa-O National Organization forces, a pro-junta paramilitary group, were helping the military. Since the military attack began a few months ago, his battalion has suffered more than 100 casualties, with five killed. He said five of his troops had been injured the night before in an airstrike.
Before the war, the commander said he sold Karenni hot dogs to tourists visiting the area. It’s a life he says he’d like to return to.
But while his troops were running low on ammunition, he too was decidedly upbeat as he watched soldiers under his command pack up the last of their equipment. Of the back and forth of the fight against the junta, he said, “I’m used to it.”
