This Short Update describes events that occurred in Bilin Township, Doo Tha Htoo District, during the period between September 2024 to February 2025. In September 2024, the State Administration Council (SAC)’s Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #409, under the command of Military Operations Command (MOC) #8, threatened villagers from P’Yah Raw village tract and forced them to cut down and deliver wood logs and bamboo poles for the army camp’s fence. On December 1st, villagers from Dwe Lo Township, Mu Traw District, feared that fighting would happen in their area, so they fled to Bilin Township, Doo Tha Htoo District. On Karen New Year’s Day (December 30th 2024), SAC fighter jets and drones dropped bombs into Bilin Township, forcing villagers to flee their village. In January 2025, fighting happened between KNLA soldiers and soldiers from Meh Pree army camp. Following the attacks, SAC’s Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #405, under MOC #8, fired mortar shells around Meh Pree army camp, on January 1st, 3rd, 12th, 17th, and 19th 2025, injuring a villager, damaging two houses, a monastery gate, and a spirit house, killing livestock, and forcing all villagers to flee. Schools in the area also closed. Infantry Battalion (IB) #27, also under MOC #8, conducted shelling on January 3rd 2025 into Shway Laung Aye village tract, Bilin Township villages, killing two villagers and injuring three other villagers, damaging a house. After the attack, villagers from Bilin Township fled to Dwe Lo Township. The SAC also conducted air strikes with drones onto Min Saw village tract and Ta Aoo Hkee village tract on January 16th and 31st 2025. Further air strikes were conducted on February 7th and 9th 2025 on Ah Su Chaung village tract, Shway Laung Aye village tract and Min Saw village tract. Due to the air strikes, two monks were injured, villagers’ houses, a monastery, and two schools were damaged, and many villagers felt afraid to send their children to school.[1]

 

 

September 2024: SAC demands wood logs and bamboo poles from villagers 

On September 27th 2024, soldiers from the State Administration Council (SAC)[2]’s Light Infantry Battalion (LIB)[3] #409, under the Military Operations Command (MOC)[4] #8, based in Lay Kay village, P’Yah Raw village tract[5], Bilin Township, Doo Tha Htoo District, demanded wood logs and bamboo from villagers who lived in Aa--- village. Villagers from Aa--- village cut down wood logs and bamboo for the soldiers, however they did not deliver them because they had not collected as much wood logs and bamboo as the soldiers had demanded of them.

Thus, on October 20th 2024, SAC soldiers demanded three hundred more wood logs and one hundred bamboo poles from the villagers who lived in Aa--- village. They threatened the villagers as well. [Reportedly, the soldiers said, ‘we are men’, implying that they have guns and could kill villagers at any time.] The LIB #409 was led by Battalion Commander Htet Lin and Camp Commander Myo Min Hein. The villagers delivered 100 wood logs which were eight-feet [2.4 metres] long and 300 bamboo poles, which were 12-feet [3.7 metres] long [in October 2024]. The SAC gave 500 kyats (USD 0.24)[6] per bamboo pole and did not pay anything for the wood logs. The wood logs and the bamboo were used to rebuild the army camp’s fence, which was old and ruined.

December 2024: Villagers from Dwe Lo Township, Mu Traw District, displaced to Bilin Township, Doo Tha Htoo District.

After fighting happened in November 2024 between Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)[7] and SAC soldiers at Htee Saw Meh military camp and Taung Tone Lone military camp from Dwe Lo Township, Mu Traw (Hpapun) District, local Karen National Union (KNU)[8] leaders warned villagers from Ab--- village, K’Ter Tee village tract, Dwe Lo Township, and other villagers nearby the village to flee to safer areas because they believed that fighting could also happen at K’Ter Tee military army camp. Thus, as soon as villagers heard the warning, they moved out from their village, as they did not dare to stay.

On December 1st 2024, villagers began to move out of their village. In total, 146 households, with 728 people (390 women and 338 men) from Ac--- village, Ad--- village, Ae--- village, Af-- village, and K’Ter Tee village tract, Dwe Lo Township, moved to live in Bilin Township. When villagers moved, they could not bring any food with them. Thus, they faced difficulties related to food insecurity.

December 2024: SAC air and drone strikes in Bilin Township on Karen New Years

On December 30th 2024, a drone and a fighter jet with Oerlikon machine guns [which villagers both believe came from the SAC] conducted air strikes in Bilin Township. Villagers stated that the drone conducted air reconnaissance seven or eight times before dropping the bombs.

At 11:55 am, a drone dropped three bombs, all of which landed on Ag--- area, which is located outside of the village, between Ah--- village, Kya Taung Sake village tract, and Ai--- village (also called Aj--- village), Yoh Kla village tract, Bilin Township.

At 12:05 pm, the SAC fighter jet dropped three more bombs. One of the bombs landed outside of Ak--- village, Noh Ber Baw village tract. It is unknown where the other two bombs landed. At 12:30 pm, three more bombs were dropped from the fighter jet. The bombs landed outside of Al--- village, Noh Ber Baw village tract. In addition, Oerlikon machine guns also fired many bullets from the fighter jet outside of Ak--- village. No one was injured as the air strike [and the Oerlikon machine gun firing] happened outside of the village, and villagers were celebrating the Karen New Year[9] inside the village.

All the villagers from Noh Ber Baw village tract were scared. Children [from Ak--- village] were supposed to be playing together in the evening, but all the villagers were forced to flee to the outside of the village to sleep [as they feared attacks on their village]. Only when the aircraft stopped did villagers return to their villages. Villagers returned during the daytime and slept outside the village at nighttime.

January 2025: SAC LIB #405 and IB #27 repeatedly shell nearby villages

[For the whole month of January 2025, fighting happened between KNLA soldiers and SAC soldiers from Meh Pree army camp, in Meh Pree village tract, Bilin Township. Thus, SAC LIB #405, based in Meh Pree army camp, and Infantry Battalion (IB)[10] #27, based in Net Gyi village, Shway Laung Aye village tract, Bilin Township, both of which are under the control of MOC #8, conducted shelling on January 1st, 3rd, 12th, 17th, and 19th 2025, into the surrounding areas where fighting was ongoing.]

On January 1st 2025, at 6 pm, [SAC] soldiers from LIB #405, under control of MOC #8 based in Meh Pree army camp, fired four 120 mm mortar shells. The shells landed inside Am--- village, Ah Su Chaung village tract, killing two buffalos and four goats. Two of the goats belonged to a villager named Saw[11] A---, one buffalo belonged to Saw B---, and another one to Saw C---. The two other goats belonged to Saw D---. The other three shells landed on farms outside of the village. Thus, from January 2nd 2025, villagers from Am--- village began moving out of their village. [Some villagers fled to their relatives who lived in other villages, and some fled to mountains and river sources].

On January 3rd 2025, at 8:35 pm, [SAC’s] Infantry Battalion (IB) #27 soldiers at the army camp based at Net Gyi village, Shway Laung Aye village tract, Bilin Township, under the control of MOC #8, fired two rounds of 60mm mortar shells into An--- Section of Ao--- village, Shway Laung Aye village tract, killing two villagers and injuring three others. As a result of the shelling, one house was destroyed. The house owner, U[12] E---, was also hit on his abdomen. He died inside the house. His niece, Ma[13] F--- (28 years old) was hit on her head and died. The shell also hit houses nearby the house of U E---. Ma G---, a 35-year-old woman, was injured on her right palm and Ma H---, a 19-year-old teenager, was injured on her left calf. Both women received treatment at their homes. A 50-year-old woman, named Daw[14] I---, was also injured on both her calves. The injuries of Ma G--- were severe, thus she was treated in Ap--- clinic, in Shway Laung Aye village tract, which is run by the SAC. The SAC IB #27 camp was led by Captain Aung Poe Hkant.

On January 3rd 2025, fighting happened between soldiers from [SAC’s] LIB #405, under MOC #8, and the KNLA outside of Bc--- village, Meh Pree village tract [located nearby Meh Pree army camp]. When fighting happened, villagers who lived near the army camp were afraid that the SAC army would drop bombs from drones into their villages, thus they did not dare stay in the village. Villagers near the army camp fled to the mountains, river sources, and to places where their friends and relatives lived as they did not dare to live in the village. Villagers from Aq---, Ar---, As---, At---, Au---, Bc--- and Av--- villages in Meh Pree village tract, and Aw---, Ax---, and Ay--- villages, in Aee Soo Hkee village tract, were displaced. These villagers fled to anywhere they had relatives or friends. Some villagers fled to Az--- (also known as Ba---) village, Kaw Poo village tract, Bu Tho Township, Mu Traw District. Some villagers fled to Bb--- village, Pah Heh village tract, Bu Tho Township. Some also fled to Dwe Lo Township, Mu Traw District, and Kruh Tuh Township, in Dooplaya District.

Additionally, due to the fighting, students from Meh Pree village tract and Ah Su Chaung village tract were unable to attend school and villagers could not work. This caused livelihood difficulties. When villagers fled, they left their homes and belongings. Villagers from Bc--- village had begun leaving their village on December 30th 2024.

On January 12th 2025, at 10:06 pm, LIB #405 based in Meh Pree village, fired one 120 mm shell. It landed inside Am--- village, Ah Su Chaung village tract, injuring a villager, and damaging a house.

On January 17th 2025, fighting happened between the SAC soldiers from Meh Pree army camp and the KNLA outside of Bc--- village [again]. When the fighting ended, the SAC conducted air strikes on the areas near the fighting. At 3:20 pm, a fighter jet dropped one bomb. At 3:24 pm, it dropped five more bombs. In addition, a [fighter jet with an] Oerlikon machine gun conducted two rounds of strafing at 3:28 pm and 3:32 pm. Then, at 3:36 pm, the aircraft dropped another bomb. All of the seven bombs landed outside Bc--- village.

In addition, in the evening, at 6:56 pm, soldiers from Meh Pree army camp fired a 120 mm shell, and it landed outside of Bd--- village, Tar Uh Nee village tract, Bilin Township. Similarly, at 7:31 pm, they fired another 120 mm shell, and it landed near the monastery entrance, in Am--- village, Ah Su Chaung village tract. The shelling damaged the monastery gate, water tank, spirit house, and the roof and wall of the house of a villager named Saw J---. At 8 pm, two bombs were dropped from a fighter jet. The bombs landed on As--- village’s road, Meh Pree village tract, damaging the house of U K--- (65 years old).

On January 19th 2025, the SAC LIB #405 based in Meh Pree army camp, fired one 120 mm mortar shell at 9:28 am, one 120 mm mortar shell at 10:11 am, and one 120 mm mortar shell at 12:22 pm. One shell landed near the farm hut of Saw L--- (55 years old) and Ko[15] M--- (28 years old) and damaged its roof. At 5 pm, LIB #405 based in Meh Pree army camp, fired three more 120 mm mortars into Be--- village, Ah Su Chaung village tract.

January 2025: SAC drone strikes in Min Saw village tract and Ta Aoo Hkee village tract

On January 16th 2025, at 4:40 pm an SAC Kamikaze drone, also known as a suicide drone, crashed into the Bf--- school [area] in Bf--- village, Min Saw village tract, Billin Township, damaging the school. [The school’s roof, celling, and glass windows were damaged]. Villagers believe that the drone was an SAC drone because [they believe that] ethnic armed groups do not have [such] drones. At around 4:42 pm, another bomb was dropped close to the school by the drone. When the drone strike happened, it was after school hours, as school had finished at 3 pm. Thus, no one was injured.

Villagers from Bf--- village do not dare live in the village due to the drone attacks. So, villagers fled to mountains and rivers sources [for shelter]. Students from Bf--- village could not attend school because, after the air strike incident, teachers were afraid to teach. Parents also refused to send their children to school. This caused the Bf--- school to close. The Bf--- school was running as a Karen Education and Culture Department (KECD)[16] school up to Grade 8, after the coup [in February 2021]. [The school was closed for all of January 2025].

On January 31st 2025, six more SAC kamikaze drones crashed into Bg--- Place[17], Bh--- village, Ta Aoo Hkee village tract, Bilin Township. Three Kamikaze drones exploded inside the village. The other three landed in farms outside of the village and did not explode.

At 6:53 am, an SAC kamikaze drone exploded on a monastery’s grounds, nearby a school in Bg--- Place. This caused fear for villagers. Moreover, at 6:55 am and 6:58 am, two drones exploded inside Bg--- Place, Bh--- village, [far from villagers’ houses] and did not injure any villager. However, villagers were again worried and afraid. Thus, some villagers slept in huts outside of the village during the nighttime and only returned to the village at sunrise. Two more drones also landed on villagers’ farms, outside of the village, and did not explode. At 4 pm, one more drone landed on a farm, outside of the village, and did not explode.

[Reportedly,] as SAC drones often target schools, parents dared not send their children to attend school, as they were afraid [of future strikes].

February 2025: SAC carries out further air strikes on Ah Su Chaung village tract, Min Saw village tract, and Shway Laung Aye village tract

On February 7th 2025, between 2 am and 3:30 am, the SAC conducted more than six bombing runs on Ah Su Chaung village tract and Shway Laung Aye village tract, Bilin Township. During the attack, three bombs landed inside Bi--- village, Shway Laung Aye village tract, damaging two houses which belonged to Saw N--- (43 years old) and Saw O--- (29 years old). The houses’ roofs, walls, and floors were damaged. No one was injured because villagers had not slept in their homes since January 2024 [due to fear of air strikes on the village].

Seven of the bombs landed inside Ah Su Chaung village tract. One of these bombs landed at the entrance of a school in Am--- village, damaging the teachers’ boarding house and a school building. Two more of these bombs landed in the Am--- village area, but no villagers were living there. Therefore, it did not cause any damages or injuries. The four remaining bombs that landed in Ah Su Chaung village tract landed outside of Am--- village and caused no damages or injuries.

On February 9th 2025, at 12:47 pm, an SAC fighter jet dropped two 500-pound bombs into Bf--- village, Min Saw village tract, Bilin Township. The bombs landed on the grounds of a monastery, damaging three monastery buildings, destroying five houses of villagers, and damaging the roofs and walls of 43 other houses. Shrapnel from the bombs also hit the remaining three buildings on the monastery grounds. It also injured two monks. One was injured on his heel and the other one was injured on his abdomen. They received treatment at the monastery. Many [plantation] fields were damaged. [Nobody else was injured because all of the villagers in Bf--- had fled after the SAC attacks on the village in January 2025.]

 

 

 

 

Further background reading on the situation on SAC shelling and air strikes in Doo Tha Htoo  District in Southeast Burma/Myanmar can be found in the following KHRG reports:

Mon, 30 Jun 2025

Footnotes: 

[1] The present document is based on information received in January and February 2025. It was provided by a community member in Do Tha 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. This document combines several received reports with the following KHRG internal log numbers: #25-16-D1; #25-44-D1; #25-44-D2; #25-44-D3; #25-44-D4; #25-44-D5; #25-44-D6; #25-44-D7; #25-44-D8; #25-48-D1; and #25-53-D1.

[2] 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 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.

[3] A Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) comprises 500 soldiers. However, most Light Infantry Battalions in the Burma military are under-strength with less than 200 soldiers. Yet up-to-date information regarding the size of battalions is hard to come by, particularly following the signing of the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). LIBs are primarily used for offensive operations, but they are sometimes used for garrison duties.

[4] Military Operations Command (MOC) is comprised of ten battalions for offensive operations. Most MOCs have three Tactical Operations Commands (TOCs) made up of three battalions each.

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

[6] All conversion estimates for the kyat are based on the June 24th 2025 mid-market exchange rate of 1,000 kyats to USD 0.48 (taken from https://wise.com/gb/currency-converter/mmk-to-usd-rate).

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

[8] The Karen National Union (KNU) is the main Karen political organisation. It was established in 1947 and has been in conflict with the Burma/Myanmar government since 1949. The KNU wields power across large areas of Southeast Burma and has been calling for the creation of a democratic federal system since 1976. Although it signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015, relations with the government remain tense.

[9] The Karen calendar is lunar, and Karen New Year generally falls between 15 December and 15 January on the English calendar. This year Karen New Year, the first day of Thalay month of the year 2764, fell on 30th December 2024. Karen villagers throughout Burma, Thailand and other countries celebrate with ceremonies, speeches, giving gifts to elders, music, Don Dance competitions and feasting. Sometimes the celebration is held on a later date based on villagers’ availability.

[10] An Infantry Battalion (IB) comprises 500 soldiers. However, most Infantry Battalions in the Tatmadaw are under-strength with less than 200 soldiers. Yet up to date information regarding the size of battalions is hard to come by, particularly following the signing of the NCA. They are primarily used for garrison duty but are sometimes used in offensive operations.

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

[12] ‘U’ is a Burmese title used for elder men, used before their name.

[13] The Karen National Union's Education and Culture Department is the education department of the Karen National Union. Its main goals are to provide mother tongue education services to rural Karen populations in Southeast Myanmar, as well as to preserve the Karen language, culture and history. Despite being an important education provider in the region, it is not officially recognised by the Myanmar government.

[14] ‘Daw’ is a Burmese female honorific title used before a person’s name.

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

[16] The Karen Education and Culture Department is the education department of the Karen National Union. Its main goals are to provide mother tongue education services to rural Karen populations in Southeast Myanmar, as well as to preserve the Karen language, culture and history. Despite being an important education provider in the region, it is not officially recognised by the Myanmar government.

[17] Place refers to the name given by local communities to a specific location. It is smaller than what local communities refer to as an area.

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ဆက်စပ်ဖတ်ရှုရန်

ဒူးသထူခရိုင် နောက်ဆုံးရဒေသတွင်းသတင်းတို - သထူမြို့နယ်တွင် လက်နက် ကြီးရမ်းသမ်းပစ်ခတ်မှုကြောင့် အရပ်သားများ သေဆုံး၊ဒဏ်ရာရခြင်း၊ အိုးအိမ်ပိုင် ဆိုင်မှုများ ပျက်စီးခြင်းနှင့်နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာပြောင်းရွှေ့ရခြင်း (၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်၊ မေလ)
ဒူးသထူခရိုင်နောက်ဆုံးရဒေသတွင်းသတင်းတို - ကျိုက်ထိုမြို့နယ်တွင် SAC လက်နက်ကြီးပစ်ခတ်မှုနှင့်ဒရုန်းတိုက်ခိုက်မှုများကြောင့် ရွာသားများသေဆုံး၊ ဒဏ်ရာရရှိပြီးလူနေအိမ်များပျက်စီး၍ စားဝတ်နေရေးအခက်အခဲများကြုံတွေ့ နေရ (၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်၊ ဇန်နဝါရီလမှ မေလအထိ)
ဒူးသထူခရိုင် နောက်ဆုံးရဒေသတွင်းသတင်းတို - ကျိုက်ထိုမြို့နယ်တွင် SAC လက်နက်ကြီးပစ်ခတ်မှုကြောင့် လူနေအိမ်များပျက်စီး၍ ရွာသားများ ထွက်ပြေး တိမ်းရှောင်ရခြင်း (၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်၊ ဇွန်လ)
ဒူးသထူခရိုင် နောက်ဆုံးရဒေသတွင်းသတင်းတို - ဘီးလင်းမြို့နယ်တွင် အဓမ္မအ လုပ်ခိုင်းစေခြင်းနှင့် SAC လေကြောင်းတိုက်ခိုက်မှုနှင့်လက်နက်ကြီးခတ်မှုကြောင့် လူသေဆုံး၊ ဒဏ်ရာရှိခြင်း၊ အိုးအိမ်ရပ်ရွာပျက်စီးခြင်းနှင့်နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာရခြင်း (၂၀၂၄ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလမှ ၂၀၂၅ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလအထိ)