The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and other groups resisting the military regime attacked a Burma Army (BA) column from Light Infantry Battalion 301 as the soldiers were travelling in Indaw Township, Kachin State.
According to the Indaw People’s Defence Force (PDF), which attacked the column along with the KIA and the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, 10 bodies of slain BA soldiers were discovered after clashes between Indaw town and Namma Kyein village from 18-19 September.
A PDF officer told KNG that the column left Indaw town a week ago and stayed in Am Ni village for a night. The groups first attacked them near Namma Kyein in the jungle at noon on 18 September. One PDF fighter was killed that day but no one from the BA. The next morning, the groups killed some of the BA soldiers while they were having breakfast in the same area, he said.
On 20 September, the group found the eight dead BA soldiers where they had attacked them a day earlier at another location, and two soldiers the following day. The same day, the regime raided Nan Nawng and Kyaw villages and 2,000 civilians fled into the jungle or to their relatives in other villages.
“BA soldiers invaded the villages after firing two shells,” a man from one of the villages told KNG on condition of anonymity, adding that no one was injured during the shelling.
The regime’s column had entered the township in early September, and three of their soldiers deserted and were captured by the PDF soldiers on the road from Indaw to Tigyaing.
