Burma Army soldier stabs breastfeeding mother

Burma Army soldiers in Khapara village, Mansi Township in Kachin State, killed a Kachin mother while she was breastfeeding her three-week-old baby.

The woman’s husband said soldiers came to where his family was hiding and stabbed his wife Daw Swan Kar Ryeh Taung’s to death.

The woman’s grief-stricken husband said, Burma Army soldiers operating in the area, fatally stabbed Daw Swan Kar Ryeh Taung 34, at around five pm on The 6th December.

“They [Burma army] got to the area where we were hiding and one of the soldiers stabbed my wife right through her left chest with his belt knife while she was breast feeding our three weeks old baby. We were shocked and we didn’t know what to do so we ran away.”

Daw Swan Kar Ryeh Taung, husband said he couldn’t identify the battalion number the soldiers responsible for killing his wife were from, but he said he was positive two senior Burma Army officers ordered one of the soldiers to do it.

The husband returned to the scene next day and found his wife’s dead body and to his amazement, his baby was still alive.

Kachin Independent Army sources said that soldiers from the Burma Army Infantry Battalion 14 and Light Infantry Battalion 418 under Division 99 operate in the area.

Daw Swan Kar Ryeh Taung was not the only Kachin woman to suffer at the hands of Burma Army soldiers on 6th December. At the same hiding site, it is alleged that the same soldiers that killed Daw Swan Kar Ryeh Taung, abducted Daw Taung Ra.

U La Nan, a KIA spokeperson said that the next day, Daw Taung Ra’s clothes were found in the jungle but there was no sight of the 25-year-old woman U La Nan said that the evidence and details described to him by local villagers suggest the woman had been killed.

“Local villagers from the area explained to us about the incident, we think the woman might have been raped and killed because the villagers tried to find the woman, but they only found her clothes scattered in the jungle.”

After his wife was killed, Daw Swan Kar Ryeh Taung’s husband and his four children took refuge in Mai Ja Yan, a camp set up to look after displaced people in the area.

A report by the Kachin Women Association Thailand, documented that since fighting between the KIA and Burma army started in June this year, 18 Kachin women have been raped by Burma Army soldiers and four were killed after being raped.
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A report released this week by the relief group Free Burma Rangers accuses the Burma Army of daily attacks against people in Kachin State. In the FBR report a team member is quoted from the battle sites.

“Every day there is shelling from attacking Burma Army units. There has been no ceasefire by the Burma Army troops in our area and they keep attacking.”

The FBR report confirms that there are over 30,000 displaced people in Kachin State because of Burma Army operations and that the government military continues to supply its frontline soldiers with munitions and food rations to help sustain the attacks on Kachin villagers.

“On 13 December 2011 at 4:20pm, 3 Burma Army helicopters sent food supplies to Burma Army camps at Loi Yain and Mo Bwan in Kachin State. These helicopters came from Momauk Township, Ba Maw District. As the helicopters flew in, Burma Army soldiers from Loi Yain and Zin Lon Ka Ba Camps fired mortars and machine guns toward the surrounding area to provide cover fire for the helicopters, which dropped four large loads.”

La Rip, the coordinator for the Relief Action Network for Internally Displaced People and Refugees (RANIR) based in Laiza, confirmed that the FBR estimates of displaced people and said there are now 30,032 people in makeshift camps and the numbers of people needing help are growing daily.