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Kachin State Town Damaged By Burma Army Shelling

The military shelled a Kachin internally displaced persons (IDP) camp and a church in an artillery attack on Momauk, a town in Kachin State.

According to a local man, a hundred Burma Army (BA) soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 437 shelled the Kachin Baptist Church on Sunday afternoon, 28 November, after a landmine exploded near it, with shells also hitting the Eden IDP camp. Later they abducted 30 people to use them as human shields during a patrol in the town.

“They grabbed them near the market. But I am not sure where they took them. I also heard that the soldiers took people near the high school and the hospital. Later they returned to their military camp,” says the man.

All the detainees were released around 5pm, a few hours after the soldiers had abducted them.

The regime has regularly abducted civilians and used them as human shields in its war against the Kachin Independence Army and other ethnic armed groups, which has intensified in Kachin and Shan states since the democratic government was overthrown in a coup on 1 February.

Human rights groups point out that the junta has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity and demand action from the international community.

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