This Incident Report describes events occurring in Moo (Mone) Township, Kler Lwee Htoo (Nyaunglebin) District, in January 2025. On January 9th 2025, a landmine explosion occurred on a road between Ab--- village, Myauk Pa Gone village tract, Moo Township, and Aa--- village, Pyin Ma Pin village tract, Moo Township. The explosion of the landmine injured two villagers from Aa--- village, when they arrived near a bridge, as they were fishing along a river. When Maung A--- was exiting the river, he accidentally stepped on a landmine planted by the People’s Defence Force (PDF). The PDF had planted the landmine in order to target State Administration Council (SAC) soldiers carrying out patrols in the area. The explosion severely injured the left leg of Maung A---, which needed amputation. His friend also sustained minor injuries. Maung A--- was taken for treatment to Ad--- hospital, under the Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW) administration, in Kyaung Pya village tract, Moo Township. A local PDF medic provided treatment to the friend of Maung A---, who was slightly injured.[1]

 

 

Part 1 – Incident Details

Type of Incident

Landmine injury

Date of Incident(s)

January 9th 2025

Incident Location

(Village, Township and District)

At a bridge between Ab--- village, Myauk Pa Gone village tract[2], and Aa--- village, Pyin Ma Pin village tract, Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District.

Victim Information

Name

Maung[3] A---

Age

17 years old

Gender

Boy

Ethnicity

Bamar[4]

Marital Status  

Single

Occupation

Daily worker

Religion

Buddhist

Position

[Villager]

Village

Aa--- village, Pyin Ma Pin village tract, Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District.

Perpetrator Information (Armed Actors)

Name(s)

Rank

Unit

Base

Commander’s Name

 [Unknown]

[Unknown]

PDF [People’s Defence Force[5]] soldiers

Ac--- village, Moo special area[6], Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District.

[Unknown.]

 

Part 2 - Information Quality

1. Explain in detail how this information was collected.

I [a KHRG researcher] received this information when visiting Saw[7] B---, a local leader from Ae--- village tract [specific position censored for security]. He informed me [a KHRG researcher] that a villager injured by a landmine explosion was at Ad--- hospital (located in Ad--- village, Kyaung Pya village tract, Moo Township). So, I [a KHRG researcher] went there to document the information.

2. Explain how the source verified this information.

This incident is about the son [Maung A---] of Daw[8] C---, who was injured by the landmine explosion. Daw C--- provided me [a KHRG researcher] with this information. Also, she transported her son to [Ad---] hospital. She [Daw C---] then stayed over at the hospital with her son [during his hospitalisation]. She knew everything [about the injury of her son].

 

Part 3 – Complete Description of the Incident

Describe the Incident(s) in complete detail.

On January 9th 2025, Maung A--- from Aa--- village, Pyin Ma Pin village tract, Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District, and his two friends went out fishing at a river in Aa--- village. They parked their motorbikes at a bridge between Aa--- village and Ab--- village, Myauk Pa Gone village tract, Moo Township. Then, they waded up the river to fish.

 

When it was almost noon time, at around 11 am, they became hungry. So, they all travelled slowly back along the river to where they had stopped their motorbikes and begun fishing, as they had kept their rice packs in the storage area under their motorbike seats. Afterwards, when they got back to the bridge where they had stopped their motorbike, the two friends of Maung A--- climbed onto the ground from the water [while Maung A--- continued fishing].

 

Then, at 11:30 am, Maung A--- stood up to climb onto the ground from the water. He accidentally stepped on a landmine when he reached the ground. The landmine exploded. One friend who had gotten out of the water before him and walked ahead was safe from the landmine explosion, while the other one was slightly injured by the shrapnel from the landmine explosion. The friend who was slightly injured received treatment from a local PDF medic. However, KHRG did not document further detailed information about the two friends of Maung A---.

 

After Maung A--- was injured, he cried for help, but his friends were shocked and afraid when the landmine exploded, so they ran away from the incident place without looking back to check on him. Maung A--- tried to crawl to reach his motorbike, but he could not reach his motorbike. Then, [a group of] unknown villagers came across him [while travelling along the road]. The unknown villagers helped him and carried him back to his house by motorbike.

 

Daw C---, the 50-year-old mother of Maung A---, from Aa--- village, explained the events surrounding her son’s injury: “It took 30 minutes to get to my house from the incident place by motorbike. When he [her son] got home, he was bleeding a lot, so we sent the information to [the PDF] gate [checkpoint]. Then, the [PDF] medic came and provided emergency treatment to him. […] Then, he was transferred somewhere by motorboat. […] Then, after travelling by boat, he was taken by car. We need to travel to a hospital [in Ad--- village] by three modes of transport [by motorbike, boat, and car]. He was injured at around 11:30 am, and we arrived here [Ad--- hospital] at around 5 pm.” [Ad--- hospital is run by the Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW)[9].]

 

According to local villagers, this landmine was planted by PDF based in Ab--- and Ac--- villages. They [the PDF] planted the landmine along a road that State Administration Council (SAC)[10] soldiers usually travel on to protect themselves when the SAC marched and approached their [PDF] camp. Therefore, these villagers [Maung A--- and his friends] from Aa--- village, did not know the landmine was planted on the road near the bridge when they arrived at Ab--- bridge and went fishing. As a result, Maung A--- sustained a severe injury on his left leg and was taken to Ad--- hospital. Maung A---'s leg needed amputation due to the severity of the injury. The hospital did not charge for the treatment, but encouraged the family to provide payment for the treatment as much as they were able.

 

Daw C---, the mother of Maung A---, also added: “They [the PDF] were afraid their enemy [SAC soldiers] would come attack them, so they planted it [the landmine] to protect themselves. Also, we were not warned about that. It is far from our village. So, we did not know that landmines were planted. […] But our children [young villagers] crossed the line [entered into the area where the PDF was operating], so things happen like that”. Regarding the operation that her child had to endure, Daw C--- explained [as of January 11th 2025]: “He [Maung A---] needed to amputate his leg. The doctor thought he would amputate it for him last night [January 10th 2025]. But he said there were no needles to stitch inner things such as blood vessels [at the time]. This morning [January 11th 2025], they told me that they would amputate [my son’s leg], so they told me not to give [him] food. Just now, a nurse came and told me that the doctor hadn’t woken up yet, so she said that if I want to give food to my son, I can, as it will be convenient for [help him have energy to pass through] the amputation. He is still young. His age does not even reach 18 years old yet.”

 

Since the SAC seized power [since the 2021 coup], civilians [in Southeast Burma] have faced mortar shelling, air strikes, landmine accidents, torture, and arbitrary arrest by the SAC. Furthermore, due to the SAC’s militarisation and abduction and torture of civilians, as well as the revolutionary force [armed resistance groups]’s activities, civilians have suffered casualties.

 

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’s family [his mother] permitted KHRG to publish this information.

 

 

 

 

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

 
Tue, 23 Dec 2025

Footnotes: 

[1] The present document is based on information received in and January 2025 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] The majority ethnic group in Myanmar, also known as ethnic Burmese or Burman.

[5] The People’s Defence Force (PDF) is an armed resistance established independently as local civilian militias operating across the country. Following the February 1st 2021 military coup and the ongoing brutal violence enacted by the junta, the majority of these groups began working with the National Unity Government (NUG), a body claiming to be the legitimate government of Burma/Myanmar, which then formalized the PDF on May 5th 2021 as a precursor to a federal army.

[6] Special Areas or Special Regions are areas that are under KNU-control or mixed-control with the Burma Army. Following the 2021 coup that reinvigorated the armed conflict in Southeast Burma, the KNU has claimed back some of these areas after seizing them or after the withdrawal of SAC troops or SAC administration. The KNU refers to these areas as Special Areas or Special Regions as they are not formally under KNU administration, but in the process of forming their governance. The SAC also refers to areas in Southeast Burma as Special Areas. This refers to areas that they do not have full control over.

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

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

[9] The Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW) is the health department of the Karen National Union. It was established in 1956 to address the lack of public healthcare resources in rural Southeast Myanmar. It currently operates a network of community-based clinics in the region, but its capabilities remain limited due to funding constraints.

[10] 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. The military junta changed its name in July 31st 2025 to State Security and Peace Commission (SSPC).

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ဆက်စပ်ဖတ်ရှုရန်

ခလယ်လွီထူခရိုင် မှုခင်းဖော်ပြသည့်မှတ်တမ်းလွှာ - SAC လက်နက်ကြီးပစ်ခတ်မှု ကြောင့် (၈) နှစ်သားကလေးတစ်ဦးအပါ ရွာသား (၅) ဦး ထိမှန်ဒဏ်ရာရရှိ (၂၀၂၅ ခုနှစ်၊ မတ်လ)
ခလယ်လွီထူခရိုင် မှုခင်းဖော်ပြသည့်မှတ်တမ်းလွှာ - ဆောထိမြို့နယ်ရှိ စာသင် ကျောင်းကို SAC မှ လေကြောင်းဖြင့်တိုက်ခိုက်၍ ရွာသားတစ်ဦး ထိမှန်ဒဏ်ရာရရှိ (၂၀၂၅ ခုနှစ်၊ မေလ)