Fighting has broken out between the Mandalay People’s Defence Force (PDF) and the Burma Army (BA) at two locations in northern Shan State, while the army has arrested several PDF fighters and civilians in the south.

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In late August, the PDF and the BA fought in Pyin Oo Lwin Township in Mandalay Region and Nawngkio Township in northern Shan State.

“There are about 500 BA soldiers in the area and they’ve entered our minefield. We heard that more than 40 BA soldiers were wounded while no one was wounded on our side,” PDF officer Comrade Moe Joe told SHAN. Several regime soldiers were also wounded in a firefight in northern Shan State on 30 August.

A day earlier, the groups clashed for an hour near Kon Tamawt in Pyin Oo Lwin Township.

Fighting in Doe Pin village in neighbouring Nawngkio Township began on 24 August, displacing nearly 1,000 people.

In Ywa Ngan Township in southern Shan State, the regime arrested two members of the PDF and two women on 28 August, according to a local who requested anonymity. However, the man couldn’t provide details of how the military captured them next to the road near Kyauk Pon village.

The army also detained a villager from Yay Oo village in Ywa Ngan Township on 29 August.

A villager who witnessed the incident said the man had nothing to do with the armed resistance.

“He just finished ( building ) his new house. I don’t know why the BA arrested him.”

With many junta soldiers deployed across Ywa Ngan Township, it’s difficult for PDF fighters to move around and for civilians displaced by the conflict to receive humanitarian aid.