At least 22 persons, three of whom were Buddhist monks, were fatally shot at close range on Saturday at a monastery in Myanmar’s Southern Shan State. As per the people who oppose military control, the army massacred civilians, according to British news agency Reuters.
Both the junta supported by the military and the local insurgent groups have charged the other of carrying out the massacre.
According to Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun, after government forces came to provide security along with a local populace’s militia, the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) along with a different rebel group entered Nan Neint village.
He said, “When the terrorist groups violently opened fire some villagers were killed and injured.”
A junta representative for Myanmar claimed that although its forces had engaged in combat with rebels in southern Shan state’s Pinlaung region, they had not injured any civilians.
According to CNN, US-based news channel, KNDF provided images and a video of the incident that revealed up to 21 bodies spread around the Nan Neint Monastery. According to the report, many of them had numerous gunshot wounds and were dressed casually.
According to the report, bullet holes could be seen in the monastery’s walls in the video the group supplied. Pools of blood were seen on the ground below the corpses, which were seen lined up and slumped against the walls of the monastery.
According to a post-mortem report by Dr Ye Zaw, automatic weapons were probably used at close range to murder 22 people, three of whom were monks wearing saffron robes.
The report, a copy of which was examined by Reuters, stated that it was “evident that they were civilians” because “no military gear, uniforms, or ammunition had been discovered on the other corpses.”
Both the KNDF and the military of Myanmar concur that combat took place there. However, after the killings at the monastery, conflicting reports of the massacre have surfaced.
On March 11, the Burmese military murdered 19 civilians in addition to three monks, according to KNDF spokesman Philip Soe Aung to CNN. “On March 12, when our troops arrived at the monastery, they discovered the dead bodies.”
Last week, fierce fighting broke out between local insurgent groups and the troops of Myanmar in a region close to Nan Nein Village.
