Myanmar soldiers kill and burn bodies of 19 villagers

Soldiers from Myanmar’s military government raided a village in the country’s central region, killing 19 villagers including four children and burning their bodies, independent media and a resident said on Friday. The killings on Wednesday in Nyaung Pin Thar village in Bago region’s Htantabin township may have been in retaliation for an attack by resistance forces opposed to army rule. Radio Free Asia, a US- funded news service, quoted a member of the locally formed People’s Defense Force as saying the killings occurred after fighting the same day between the army and his group and its allies from the Karen National Liberation Army, an ethnic rebel group that operates in the area. He said the resistance forces killed 20 soldiers and captured three officers. A farmer from the village told The Associated Press that he lost his wife, 7-year-old daughter and nine other relatives in the raid by about 10 soldiers. The farmer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared arrest, said he had been working in the fields and did not return on Wednesday after he was informed soldiers had entered the village, so he did not witness the killings. When he returned the next day, his family members were gone and he found bodies, charred beyond recognition, in two spots in the small village. “They kill people as easily as killing a chicken or bird. At least they should have released the children, who don’t understand anything, on humanitarian grounds,” the farmer said. He said 19 people had been killed, and it appeared they had been shot in the head before their bodies were burned using gasoline and diesel fuel taken from a store in the village. He said the soldiers also took beer and alcoholic drinks which they consumed. Reports of the killings, along with what were said to be photos and videos of the remains of the victims, also appeared in independent Myanmar media and social media on Friday, the same day a human rights monitoring group released a report cha