A junta column is roaming through villages in Linway Village Tract in southern Shan State’s Ywangan Township harassing villagers and imposing mobile internet and phone bans in villages when they stay there.
The column of about 100 junta soldiers has been moving through the villages of Peikin, Thahpanpin, and Kyauktaw, in Linway Village Tract, since 15 April 2025. Whenever it has entered a village the column has imposed a ban on villagers making phone calls or using mobile internet, according to locals.
Explaining what the junta column has been doing in Ywangan Township a resident from the township said: “Even when the soldiers aren’t in the villages, they are roaming the forested areas outside [the villages]. The junta troops often stop tea pickers from entering the areas where they’re stationed. And when they come into a village, they ban everyone from using phones and mobile internet. People can only use them again once the soldiers leave for another village. On top of that, the junta column often fires small arms and mortars at the thick forested areas for no clear reason.”
The military column has also been frequently forcibly commandeering vehicles from villagers and then just abandoning them in other areas rather than returning them to their owners, according to a 50-year-old villager from one of the villages in the area.
He said: “When they came to our village, they set up camp in the village school. They dumped three vehicles they had taken from somewhere else right in our village. In the past, the soldiers also took vehicles from our village, and we still haven’t gotten them back.”
The junta column increased its activities in the area after an unidentified armed group shot and killed three members of the junta-aligned Pyu Saw Htee militia and a grade-8 student in Thahpanpin Village on 14 April, according to villagers.
Explaining what happened a villager with knowledge of the situation said to Shan Herald: “On 12 April four people were killed in Thahpanpin Village—three members of the junta-aligned Pyu-Saw-Htee militia and a grade-8 student. Around 1:00 am that day, gunmen stormed three homes and shot them dead. We still don’t know which group was behind the attack.”
This was not the first time that junta personnel have been shot dead in Ywangan Township.
On 26 November 2024, a junta-appointed administrator and a civilian were fatally shot in Ywangan Township’s Hpayargyikone Village.
Prior to that, on 12 October 2024, an unknown armed group shot and killed a junta-appointed village administrator and his wife in Theinkone Village, Ywangan Township.
The junta firmly controls all of Ywangan Township. In late December 2024, junta soldiers burned down all of Minpalaung Village in Ywangan Township which left the villagers in desperate need of aid.
