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Burma Army Soldiers Accused Of Armed Robbery

Burma Army soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 515 have allegedly stabbed and robbed a villager in Shan State on the 23rd of March.

Shan Human Rights Foundation said that the victim, a 46 year-old villager, was handing out invitation letters for his son’s ordination ceremony when two Burma Army soldiers held him at knife point and badly beat him.

“The soldiers beat him with a piece of wood on his head, face, neck; and stabbed his head, both sides of his cheeks, and the back of his neck till he lost consciousness. The Burmese soldiers then threw his body into a bush on the side of the road. The soldiers took the victim’s motorbike, about 50,000 Kyats [$55 USD] and a watch,” SHRF said in a statement.

The victim, Sai Sarng, was so badly beaten he had to be taken to Mandalay Hospital with teeth knocked out, lacerations from a knife and a broken jaw, SHRF said.

“I bought them the betel that they asked me to buy. But after I left their camp, two Burmese soldiers were waiting for me ahead and beat me till I passed out. When I woke up, I felt pain all over and found my body covered in blood; then I crawled to Hua Long village,” Sai Sarng said in the statement.

The victim’s wife questioned why Sai Sarng was attacked, “We are just ordinary villagers and make a living in a simple way. We do not have any connection with any political parties or armed groups,” she said in the statement.

Conflict has been present in Shan State since July 2011, when the Burma Army launched an offensive against Shan-State Army-North (SSA-N).

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which tracks the flow of internally displaced people (IDPs) worldwide, estimated that armed conflict uprooted 94,500 people in Northern Shan and Kachin State.

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