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An intense battle is underway in western Myanmar while Junta’s troops are trying to restart Falam, the second largest city in Chin State, soldiers dropping more than 500 bombs in last week, residents and rebel forces said on Tuesday.
Chinese fighting has increased in recent months, while rebels are looking to push the remaining junta forces that have occupied the state after the army’s February 2021 coup. The falam confrontation comes after a Chin official told RFA Burmese at the end of December that the ethnic chin and the Rakhine rebels controlled at least 85% of the Western state.
Salai Tin Me Htut, spokesperson for the Chin National Defense Force, or CNDF, told FRA that the battle for Falam had been launched by a military offensive on March 11 to take over the city controlled by the rebels, and that the Junta Air Force dropped more than 150 bombs in the region only on Saturday.
Chin Rebels captured Falam during their November 9, 2024, offensive, taking control of the whole territory with the exception of a base exploited by the Battalion of the light infantry of the Junta n ° 268. Chin spokesperson PDF said that the last weekly bombing campaign was part of a junta supply to prevent the capture of the battalion.
Salai Tin Mi Htt said that the chin forces besieged the battalion for almost a month and that the combat intensified since March 11 came after the reinforcements of Junta a day earlier to try to break the seat.
“They sent 40 to 50 soldiers, which prompted the fighting to burst,” he said. “But we managed to control [key strategic areas]. This is why they answered with air strikes and retaliated viciously. »»
The CNDF spokesman said that, in addition to the more than 150 bombs that had been abandoned by the army on the region on Saturday, he thinks that the Air Force fell “more than 500 bombs” on Falam during the week.
Thousands of people flee
Meanwhile, more than 10,000 inhabitants of Falam fled in the neighboring villages, the canton of Kalay in the Sagaing region, the commercial capital Yangon and on the other side of the border of the Indian State of Mizoram, according to the move.
They expressed the fear that Junta’s air strikes “reduce the city in rubble”, as was the case in the canton of Thantlang near Chin.
“I fear that my city will not be destroyed,” said a resident that was moved by fighting. “I feel horrible that they have brought these problems to the city.
Residents of more than 10 villages near Falam also flee the region, while others “build bombs shelters” and are unable to work on their farms, they said.
“The air strikes are unpredictable – they simply drop bombs where they want,” said another resident of Falam. “People in neighboring villages run away … [but] Farmers … are supposed to plant culture seeds next month. »»
The Air Force on Sunday bombed the village of Thalanzar, about 18 kilometers (11 miles) of falam, damaged houses and a building of the Christian church, residents said. Two days earlier, an air strike in the village of Sizar Mourl injured a man and a woman and damaged four houses, they said.
RFA’s attempts to contact Aung Cho, Junta’s spokesperson for Chin State, on the situation in Falam remained unanswered on Tuesday.
Sources of the defense force for anti-Junta Chin, or PDF, who fought alongside the CNDF, told RFA that the fighting since March 11 had made victims on both sides, although RFA could not independently confirm the complaint.
The CNDF said that the PDF Chin captured about 130 junta troops as prisoners of war during the battles in Falam since November 2024.
According to a February declaration from the Institute of Mental Affairs, which follows conflicts in the state, the troops of the junta killed at least 491 civilians in the state of Chin since the military coup four years ago.
The press release indicates that more than 3,000 houses and buildings were destroyed by air strikes and fire fires during the same period.
Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Published by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.