This Incident Report describes events occurring in Moo (Mone) Township, Kler Lwee Htoo (Nyaunglebin) District in July 2024. On July 25th 2024, State Administration Council (SAC) Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #439, which is based in Ka Nyut Kwin City, Pyu Township, conducted a drone strike by  dropping two bombs simultaneously in K--- village, Naw Ghaw Plaw village tract, Moo Township, which injured a 32-year-old man named Maung B--- and a 17-year-old boy named Saw D---. Maung B--- was walking home when the drone strike occurred, and he sustained injuries to his arm and his chest, and his leg was broken. Saw D--- was inside his house when shrapnel hit him, resulting in a minor wound to his waist. Since June 2023 until now, some villagers from K--- village have been displacing and feel like they have no long-term safe place to live.[1]

 

 

Part 1 – Incident Details

Type of Incident

[Air strike.] Drone strike and injury

Date of Incident(s)

July 25th 2024

Incident Location

(Village, Township and District)

K--- village, Naw Ghaw Plaw village tract[2], Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District.

Name

Maung[3] B---

Saw[4] D---

Age

32 years old

17 years old

Gender

Man

Boy

Ethnicity

Bamar[5]

Karen

Marital Status  

Married

-

Occupation

Daily worker

Daily worker

Religion

Christian

Unknown

Position

Villager

Villager

Village

K--- village, Naw Ghaw Plaw village tract, Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District.

K--- village, Naw Ghaw Plaw village tract, Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District.

Perpetrator Information (Armed Actors)

Name(s)           

Rank

Unit

Base

Commander’s Name

Unknown

Unknown

State Administration Council (SAC)[6] Light Infantry Battalion (LIB)[7] #439

Ka Nyut Kwin City, Pyu Township

Unknown

 

Part 2 - Information Quality

1. Explain in detail how this information was collected.

[A KHRG researcher] heard about this incident when [he] called the village head of K--- village and requested information from him. [The village head, named Pu[8] C---,] also accompanied [the KHRG researcher] to see [and talk to] the injured person, Maung B---, in person. [The KHRG researcher] took photos [of Maung B---’s injuries] and conducted an interview with his [Maung B---’s] wife, Naw[9] P---. [The KHRG researcher also talked to Saw D---, the other injured villager.]

2. Explain how the source verified this information.

This information was given by Naw P--- and her husband Maung B---, who is one of the victims. He faced this incident himself. [The KHRG researcher also talked to Saw D---, who also sustained an injury due to the air strike.]

 

Part 3 – Complete Description of the Incident

Describe the Incident(s) in complete detail.

On July 25th 2024, in the evening at around 5 pm, the State Administration Council (SAC) Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #439, based in Ka Nyut Kwin City, Pyu Township, deployed a drone that dropped two bombs simultaneously in K--- village, Naw Ghaw Plaw village tract, Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District. The attack injured a 32-year-old man named Maung B--- and a 17-year-old teenage boy named Saw D---. [Local villagers believe LIB #439 conducted the attack, as this LIB’s is the only army camp in the area of K--- village.]  

 

Maung B--- was hit by the drone strike while walking home after bathing [at the local well]. [Earlier in the day,] he had been cleaning up his house which had been damaged earlier [exact date unknown; as the villagers were displaced] by air strikes and mortar shelling [from the SAC]. Naw P--- [, Maung B---’s wife,] explained: “After Burmese [Burma Army] soldiers shelled mortar shells and conducted air strikes [in K--- village; in 2024, exact date unknown], we went to stay with my mother-in-law in the city and later we moved to our farmhouse [near K--- village to] start working. But later we had to go back to our village [K--- village] because it was raining and there was flooding in our farmhouse. When we arrived to the village [on July 25th 2024], we saw our house’s roof was damaged by air strikes and we could see through [the holes] in it. We had to recover the roof and clean up our house. After we cleaned the house, my husband [Maung B---] went to [the local well to] take a bath and he was hit by the drone attack while he was [on his way] back to home”. Naw P--- [, Maung B---’s wife,] mentioned that [she believes] the SAC has been receiving information [about Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)[10]’s movements] from someone when the KNLA move through the village to their army camp, so then SAC drones came and dropped the bombs. [Before the air strike occurred on that day, Naw P--- and her husband, Maung B---, saw five or six KNLA soldiers passing through K--- village.]

 

Maung B--- was injured twice on his upper left arm, once on his chest, and his right leg was broken by the bomb [explosion]. Maung B--- was taken [by some local villagers and his wife] to a clinic [administered by the Karen National Union (KNU)[11]] in H--- village, in Way Swah village tract, Moo Township, and now he remains under treatment [as of August 2024]. Maung B--- has not received any [financial] support [for his medical treatment or transportation costs] while he remains under treatment. His family has faced many problems since he was injured because he is the one who supports his family for their livelihood [and he could not work during his recovery. His wife also had to take time to look after him.].

 

[Due to the drone attack,] Saw D--- was injured on the waist [by shrapnel]. [Saw D--- was inside his home when the strike occurred.] Saw D--- received treatment in K--- village [from local healthcare workers] because he was not injured severely.

 

As a result, the villagers dare not to live in the village after the incident occurred. From June to July 2023 until now [November 2024], [drone strikes have happened regularly in the area so] villagers had to flee [constantly] to other places such as farmhouses, cities and other villages when air strikes and mortar shelling happened. Some of them fled and stayed outside [of the village] for one year already and they have faced problems from raining and flooding. Furthermore, the villagers feel like they have no long-term stable place to live. 

 

Part 4 - Permission for Using the Details

Did the victim(s) provide permission to use this information? Explain how that permission was provided.

The victim, Maung B---, and his wife, Naw P---, gave permission to use and release this information. [The other victim, Saw D---, also gave permission for this information to be published.]

 

 

 

 

Further background reading on the situation on air strikes in Southeast Burma/Myanmar can be found in the following KHRG reports:

 
Thu, 19 Dec 2024

Footnotes: 

[1] The present document is based on information received in August 2024 (and November 2024). It was provided by a community member in Kler Lwee Htoo District who has been trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions on the ground. The names of the victims, their photos and the exact locations are censored for security reasons. The parts in square brackets are explanations added by KHRG.

[2] A village tract is an administrative unit of between five and 20 villages in a local area, often centred on a large village.

[3] ‘Maung’ is a Burmese male honorific title used before a person’s name.

[4] ‘Saw’ is a S’gaw Karen male honorific title used before a person’s name.

[5] The majority ethnic group in Myanmar, also known as ethnic Burmese or Burman.

[6] The State Administration Council (SAC) is the executive governing body created in the aftermath of the February 1st 2021 military coup. It was established by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on February 2nd 2021, and is composed of eight military officers and eight civilians. The chairperson serves as the de facto head of government of Burma/Myanmar and leads the Military Cabinet of Myanmar, the executive branch of the government. Min Aung Hlaing assumed the role of SAC chairperson following the coup.

[8] ‘Pu’ is a Karen prefix used for elderly men, meaning 'grandfather', but it does not necessarily signify any actual familial relationship.

[9] ‘Naw’ is a S’gaw Karen female honorific title used before a person’s name.

[10] The Karen National Liberation Army is the armed wing of the Karen National Union.

[11] The Karen National Union (KNU) is the main Karen political organisation. It was established in 1947 and has been in conflict with the government since 1949. The KNU wields power across large areas of Southeast Myanmar and has been calling for the creation of a democratic federal system since 1976. Although it signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in 2015, following the 2021 coup staged by Burma Army leaders, the KNU officially stated that the NCA has become void.

Print:Print:

ဆက်စပ်ဖတ်ရှုရန်

ခလယ်လွီထူခရိုင် မှုခင်းဖော်ပြသည့်မှတ်တမ်းလွှာ- မူးမြို့နယ်အတွင်း၌မြေမြှုပ် မိုင်းပေါက်ကွဲမှုကြောင့် အသက် (၁၄) နှစ်အရွယ်ရှိသော မိန်းကလေးတစ်ဦး ပြင်းထန်စွာထိခိုက်ဒဏ်ရာရရှိခြင်း (၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်၊ မေလ)