Burma Army soldiers shot at a 32-year-old man driving in northern Shan State’s Kutkai Township this week, leaving him injured.
Ah Ti was shot near Ho Nawng village at 7:30 p.m. on September 8, as he was returning from Muse, on the Burma-China border.
“Burmese soldiers told me to stop the car. As I was trying to reduce my speed, a soldier shot at me with four to five bullets. The bullets hit the car mirror and my hand. Other bullets hit the body of my car,” Ah Ti told SHAN.
Nam Khai bridge was temporarily closed that day, with soldiers permitting vehicles to cross at around 7:00 p.m. The last vehicle—Ah Ti’s car—was shot at. Soldiers reportedly searched his car after he was ordered to lay down on the ground, injured.
“I’m just a normal civilian driver. I’m not a rebel. I’m not a robber. I asked them what they were going to do about me getting a gunshot injury to my hand. The soldier told me that he was not a medical and didn’t have medicine,” Ah Ti explained. “When I arrived in Kutkai, I received medical treatment at Kutkai public hospital.”
He added that other Burma Army soldiers apologized to him for the ordeal while he was at Kutkai hospital, but did not offer him compensation.
“It’s nonsense to shoot at a civilian,” Sai Wan Lieng Kham, a parliamentarian in nearby Lashio Township, told SHAN. “If an incident like this occurs, civilians cannot report it anywhere. The Burma Army should strictly control their soldiers,” he said.
The Tatmadaw and members of the Northern Alliance of ethnic armed groups have had multiple clashes in the area where Ah Ti was shot, with some seven vehicles destroyed so far.
