Resource information
This Interview with Ma A--- describes events occurring in B--- village, Hpa-an Township, Thaton District in June 2015, including land confiscation, forced relocation, attack on a village and villagers, threatening, looting, arbitrary detention and threats to children’s right to education.
"The villagers who lived in B--- village, whose ancestors lived there, and who had obtained the land titles to that land from the Karen National Union (KNU), had their village burned and looted by Burma/Myanmar police and officials from the Burma/Myanmar Department of Forest Management between June 22nd and 25th 2015, under the claim that it had been designated a forest reserve...
Prior to the raid, on February 1st 2015, U Zaw Min, the chief minister of Kayin State, forced 15 villagers from B--- village to sign a document in which they agreed to demolish their houses and move elsewhere within seven days. This deadline was later revised to June 21st 2015 when the police came to B--- village...
Ma A--- reported that on June 2nd 2015, around 50 police officers came into B--- village and arrested 25 villagers, including the interviewee’s husband and father, in addition to her younger brother, who had already been in jail for two months at that point. None of these villagers have been released at the time of writing. Other villagers have fled to the forest, monastery or their relatives’ houses to avoid being arrested...
While the police were demolishing the villagers’ houses, they also looted the village, taking villagers’ valuables and the goods Ma A--- sold in her shop...
Following the destruction of the village, approximately 100 villagers, including Ma A---, fled to Myawaddy with the help of Saw P---...
There are six school-age children in the group that fled to Myawaddy. Their newly built school in B--- village was also destroyed...
