The charred remains of more than 30 people, including women and children, were found in burnt-out vehicles in Kayah state in Myanmar on Saturday, a rebel group and a monitor said, accusing the military junta of the attack.
The Karenni Human Rights Group said its members found the burned bodies of internally displaced people near Mo So village in Hpruso town, about 70 kilometres west of the border with Mae Hong Son province in Thailand.
Myanmar has been in chaos since the February coup, with more than 1,300 people killed in a crackdown by security forces, according to a local monitoring group.
“People’s Defence Forces” (PDF) have sprung up across the country to fight the junta, and have drawn the military into a bloody stalemate of clashes and reprisals.
On Saturday, photos appeared on social media purporting to show two burnt-out trucks and a car on a highway in Hpruso township, with the charred remains of bodies inside.
A member of a local PDF group said its fighters had found the vehicles on Saturday morning after hearing the military had stopped several vehicles in Hpruso after clashes with its fighters nearby on Friday.
“When we went to check in the area this morning, we found dead bodies burnt in two trucks. We found 27 dead bodies,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“We found 27 skulls,” said another witness who did not want to be named.
“But there were other dead bodies on the truck, which had been burned to pieces so we couldn’t count them.”
The Myanmar military said it had shot and killed an unspecified number of “terrorists with weapons” from the opposition armed forces in the village, state media said. The people were in seven vehicles and did not stop for the military, it said.
A Myanmar Witness monitor said it had confirmed local media reports and witness accounts from local fighters “that 35 people including children and women were burnt and killed by the military on Dec 24 in Hpruso township”.
Satellite data also showed a fire had occurred around 1pm on Friday in Hpruso, it added.
AFP was unable to confirm the reports, but AFP digital verification reporters said the images purporting to show the incident had not appeared online before Friday evening.
The military denied the claims. A junta spokesman said a clash had broken out in Hpruso on Friday after its troops attempted to stop seven vehicles driving in a “suspicious way”.
Troops had killed a number of people in the subsequent clash, spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP, without giving details.
PDF groups have surprised the army with their effectiveness, analysts have said, as the military struggles to break resistance to its rule.
The Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, one of the largest of several civilian militias opposing the junta, said the dead were not their members but civilians seeking refuge from the conflict.
“We were so shocked at seeing that all the dead bodies were different sizes, including children, women and old people,” a commander from group told Reuters, asking not to be named.
A local resident who asked not to be named for security reasons said he was aware of the fire on Friday night but could not go to the scene as there was shooting.
“I went to see this morning. I saw dead bodies that had been burned, and also the clothes of children and women spread around,” he told Reuters by phone.
Earlier this month the United States said it was “outraged by credible and sickening reports” that Myanmar troops had seized 11 villagers, including children, in the Sagaing region and burned them alive.
Win Myat Aye, a member of a group of ousted lawmakers, condemned the latest atrocity.
“This is a cruel present from the military to our people on Christmas Day,” he said.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military overthrew the elected government of Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi almost 11 months ago, claiming fraud in a November election that her party had won. International observers have said the ballot was fair.
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