Junta troops fired three rounds of heavy artillery at Mai Ja Yang, a town on the Chinese border in a long-term Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) controlled area.

The attack happened at around 1:00 p.m. on 6 November.

A KIO news source said: They [junta troops] fired onto Mai Ja Yang three times in succession. The exact location [where the shells landed] is still being investigated.”

A Kachin Independence Army (KIA) frontline officer said that the artillery attack was in retaliation for a successful KIA offensive against the junta.

The night before the artillery attack, 5 November, the KIA and people’s defence force (PDF) fighters attacked and occupied the junta’s tactically important frontline stronghold of Laukdan Hill, in Momauk Township, which was being defended by the junta’s 88th Light Infantry Division.

Mai Ja Yang is the KIO’s educational capital and it is home to the Kachin National College, the College of Education, the Federal Law Academy, the Kachin State Comprehensive University and other vocational schools jointly established by the KIO and the National Unity Government (NUG).