YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Security forces stormed a town in northwestern Myanmar on Wednesday, where some residents used homemade shotguns to withstand the army’s force attack in February, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring many others, local news reports said.
If the eleven deaths are confirmed, it is one of the highest death toll per day outside the two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay.
Online news site Khonumthung Burmese said the attack on Kalay began before dawn. The videos on the site included the sounds of gunfire, high-caliber weapons, and grenade blasts. It was said on social media that grenades with rockets were used in the attack, but no evidence was provided.
The news website said that, in addition to the seven deaths, many people in the city were also wounded and arrested, also known as Kalemyo or Kale. More than half of the population are members of the Chin ethnic minority.
According to the news sites The Irrawaddy and Myanmar Now, most deaths occurred in the morning, but in the afternoon more were reported, bringing the total to 11.
Security forces have killed at least 581 protesters and bystanders in their fight against the February 1 coup that drove the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors the victims and arrests.
Almost all of the protests were not violent, but because police and soldiers increased their use of lethal force, some participants armed themselves with homemade weapons such as petrol bombs for self-defense. In Kalay, some residents took up simple but deadly homemade hunting rifles.
Myanmar Now reported on Tuesday that protesters in Kalay had set up neighborhoods and beaten the security forces.
Protesters in the city and nearby towns on March 28, when the army tried to attack Kalay, are said to have fierce resistance. The attack came a day after the junta’s forces killed more than 110 people across the country, the highest death toll in a single day since the coup.
The report states that protesters “took more than their own position. Four of them died that night, but an equal number of the enemy as well, including an officer or two. The protesters also managed to wound 17 of their heavily armed attackers. ”
The protesters, who organized themselves into a ‘Kalay Civil Army’, inflicted even more casualties in the following days.
Daily protests against military rule continued Wednesday in other cities and towns, including Mogok in central Myanmar, and Bago, northeast of Yangon, where social media reported that security forces fired live ammunition at protesters. The Irrawaddy news website reported two deaths in Bago.
Dozens burned a Chinese flag and marched in Ahlone township in Yangon to boycott products manufactured by China. Many protesters believe that Beijing supports the military regime with economic and political support, including the threat of a veto at the UN Security Council against international sanctions.