The Burma Army (BA) in civilian clothes forced civilians to their feet while firing their weapons into the air in southern Shan State. Locals reported that they were trying to obtain information from innocent villagers about the location of the Ywar Ngarn People Defence Forces (PDF) camp, which recently killed BA soldiers during an ambush in Ywar Ngarn Township.

”They raided the roadside houses and then searched other people’s houses,” a local, who asked that his name not be published, said of the undercover soldiers who abducted four villagers from Thaphan Pin last Friday.

”They threatened to kill them if they did not tell them the location of the PDF camp. But they’re just ordinary civilians without any knowledge of where the PDF camp is located.”

After the soldiers left Thaphan, everyone fled into the jungle.

In late April, the BA arrested 34 people, including four women, from Lae Kein after informants led the 100-strong column to the village in the township.

Another local requesting anonymity said SHAN, that the men were taken to the town of Kalaw, while the women were taken directly to the army’s camp.

“Some female villagers were forced to cook for the soldiers at their base near Lae Kein,” said the man from Nabang Gyi, which is close to Lae Kein.

In mid-April, soldiers murdered six people from Pae Yin Tawng after accusing them of helping the resistance.

The PDF killed at least 4 soldiers in an attack on a BA column near Lwa Sin village in the township on 9 April. Since then, the regime has been going from village to village, interrogating civilians, searching for its camp.