As of 30 April 2025 the Thiri Yadana Morning Market in Bhamo Town, Kachin State was still burning after junta soldiers set it on fire the day before.
A Kachin Independence Army (KIA) member who witnessed the burning said to KNG on 30 April: “The junta forces set fire to Bhamo’s main market. Just yesterday, in a single day, a lot of houses in the town were burned down. The market is still burning today.”
The junta was also firing artillery into the town and soldiers were still setting fire to houses in the town, as of 30 April.
The KIA launched its first offensive to take Bhamo Town in mid-December 2024. Since then there has been fighting in the town and it has been under the mixed control of the junta and the KIA. Soon after launching its offensive the KIA took control of large areas of the town.
But in February the junta launched a counteroffensive using soldiers, artillery drones and airstrikes. Homes and religious buildings became frequent targets of junta arson attacks. During February, both the Roman Catholic Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Bhamo Town suffered extensive fire damage.
By March the junta had taken back many areas of the town from the KIA.
But, after a brief lull in the fighting, the KIA launched another offensive to take the town on 25 April. By 30 April the KIA had recaptured a complex that was home to junta offices and some guard posts. It was still fighting the junta soldiers in the town at the Infantry Battalion (IB) 47 base, the Military Operations Command (MOC) 21 headquarters and on the Bhamo University campus.
Rumours have been circulating that about 100 female junta soldiers surrendered to the KIA in Bhamo Town on 29 April. A KIA source could not confirm this to KNG, but they did say that the KIA had assisted in evacuating around 100 civilians, including monks, adults, and youths as young as 15 from a chapel in a monastery compound in Bhamo Town.
Thousands of houses in Bhamo Town have been burned down in the five months of fighting since the KIA launched its first offensive, according to locals.
