The junta has been sending reinforcements to Infantry Battalion (IB) 126 stationed in Sagaing Region’s Nanyun Town in Nanyun Township, since 28 April 2025, according to the town’s residents.
A 40-year-old resident of Nanyun Town said to KNG: “The town is small, so everyone knows the soldiers who are usually here. But lately, there are a lot of unfamiliar soldiers around, and it’s causing some confusion and worry among the locals.”
Another of the town’s residents with close ties to the junta who wanted to remain anonymous said that in late April, the junta had airlifted about 100 more soldiers into the town by helicopter.
The junta has two main military bases in Nanyun Town. The Nanyun Garrison base is on the road that goes to Pangsu Town in Sagaing Region, on the border with India. The other base is on the road going to Danai Town in Kachin State. The recent troop reinforcements were sent to the Nanyun Garrison Base.
Nanyun Township is the northernmost township of Sagaing Region. To the south it borders Sagaing Region but the rest of it is squeezed between Kachin State to the east and India to the west. It is in the Naga Self-Administered Zone.
The reasons for the junta’s reinforcing of the Nanyun Garrison are unclear. Some residents of the town have speculated that it is because Nanyun Township is strategically important because it shares a border with Kachin State and is on the Ledo Road that goes south to Kachin State’s Danai Town and then on to the Kachin State capital, Myitkyina.
Another Nanyun Town resident said: “Although Nanyun is officially part of Sagaing Region, it is connected to Danai Town in Kachin State. From Nanyun, the Ledo Road goes to Danai. While the exact military intentions of the junta are unclear, it is possible that Nanyun is being used as a route for sending reinforcements into Kachin State.”
In April 2025 there was intense fighting between the junta and a resistance coalition led by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) near Jahtu Zup Village in Hpakant Township, Karen State, on the Ledo Road between Nanyun Town and Danai Town. The military situation in that area remains tense and that may be another reason why the junta reinforced its troop numbers in Nanyun Town.
Shortly after the junta deployed reinforcements in Nanyun Town, a faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) that opposes the junta, led by Yung Aung, stationed reinforcements in Namalit Village, located about 10 miles (about 16km) from the town.
The NSCN-K is a Naga separatist group based in the Naga areas of Sagaing Region. It wants to establish a self-determining sovereign Naga State in the Naga ethnic area, which straddles the border between Myanmar and India. It has split into two factions. One faction, led by Yung Aung, opposes the junta. the other faction, led by Ang Mai supports the Myanmar junta and has close ties to it.
