Troops burn villages in Myanmar heartland, seek to crush resistance | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Get the Paper
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Friday
July 25, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Get the Paper
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2025
Troops burn villages in Myanmar heartland, seek to crush resistance

South Asia

Reuters
14 April, 2022, 10:20 am
Last modified: 14 April, 2022, 10:21 am

Related News

  • More than 20 civilians killed in Myanmar air strike on monastery: witnesses
  • ASEAN agrees Myanmar election is not a priority: Malaysia
  • Support for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh risks collapse: UN refugee agency
  • China risks global heavy rare-earth supply to stop Myanmar rebel victory
  • Bangladesh recalls ambassador from Myanmar

Troops burn villages in Myanmar heartland, seek to crush resistance

Reuters
14 April, 2022, 10:20 am
Last modified: 14 April, 2022, 10:21 am
An aerial view of Bin village of the Mingin Township in Sagaing region after villagers say it was set ablaze by the Myanmar military, in Myanmar February 3, 2022. Picture taken February 3, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
An aerial view of Bin village of the Mingin Township in Sagaing region after villagers say it was set ablaze by the Myanmar military, in Myanmar February 3, 2022. Picture taken February 3, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

Rubble and ashes, overlooked by a single golden pagoda, are almost all that remain of the wood and brick houses most people had built for themselves in the quiet riverside village of Bin in the Buddhist heartland of central Myanmar.

Bin is one of more than 100 villages partially or completely burned by Myanmar's military since the start of this year, its homes among more than 5,500 civilian buildings razed as troops try to suppress opposition to last year's coup, according to media reports collated by activist group Data For Myanmar.

Dozens of satellite images reviewed by Reuters, supplied by US earth-imaging company Planet Labs and US space agency NASA, show widespread torching of villages in the central part of the country. The photos, largely confirming the local media reports, are among the strongest evidence to date that the military is using widespread arson to step up its assault on resistance in the central Sagaing region, where residents have told Reuters there is armed opposition to the junta.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

"It's a campaign of terror," Tom Andrews, the United Nations special envoy for human rights in Myanmar, told Reuters. "If you live in an area or village that they (the junta) think is particularly supportive of those that have taken up arms then you are, in their view, the enemy."

Andrews, who is based in the United States, told Reuters he has spoken by phone with several witnesses and other people providing him with information on the ground. He said these people told him that the military had increased attacks in Sagaing over the past few months, with soldiers leading ground assaults and jets carrying out air strikes.

The junta, which overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, has declared any opposition to it illegal and says the military is seeking to restore order in the country. Myanmar's military did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Over the past few months the junta has accused opposition forces of burning villages, without presenting evidence.

The military and pro-military militias have been setting fire to villages in central Myanmar almost every day since December, according to reports from BBC Burmese and local media collated by Data For Myanmar and seen by Reuters. Publicly available NASA satellite photos confirm the location of almost all the largest blazes.

Military attacks and arson have led to large-scale displacements, residents told Reuters. More than 52,000 people fled their homes in the last week of February alone, according to the United Nations.

The recent burnings are the first time such a tactic has been seen in the formerly peaceful, mostly Buddhist central heartland. Over the past year, the region has been the site of intense fighting between junta troops and groups belonging to the People's Defence Force (PDF), the armed wing of the National Unity Government (NUG), which was ousted in the coup. The junta has declared the NUG and PDF illegal and branded them terrorists.

Reuters spoke to 14 villagers from the Sagaing region who described how soldiers torched their settlements. Reuters was unable to confirm certain aspects of their accounts. But they were nonetheless consistent with the satellite images seen by the news agency.

'DESTROYED IN A SECOND'

Bin was set ablaze by the military on Jan. 31, according to seven residents who spoke to Reuters.

Photographs and video of Bin taken by locals over the following days, seen by Reuters, show villagers picking their way through a burned wasteland. "We lost everything we have," 41-year-old Maung Zaw, a peanut farmer, told Reuters by phone. "I will fight against this military dictatorship to the end."

Three people said they helped carry elderly relatives and friends out of their homes as they were about to be torched or already blazing. One man, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution by the military, told Reuters he crawled into nearby fields and covered himself with tomato plants to hide from the soldiers.

A satellite photo dated Feb. 7, shared with Reuters by Planet Labs, shows much of the village burned to ashes, with about 100 homes destroyed. A photo from Nov. 27 shows the village intact. Reuters also saw six photographs and a video taken by residents from a drone, showing the destruction.

The witnesses said nobody was killed but they lost storehouses full of crops and food for animals as well as their homes, built over generations.

"We built our house our whole lives, it has been destroyed in a second," said a teacher in his 20s from Bin, who asked not to be named, for fear of retribution from the military.

Reuters was unable to reach local authorities in the region to confirm the attack on Bin and other villages.

The burning of villages and displacement of inhabitants in areas such as Sagaing and Magway – where much of the country's crops are produced - will disrupt sowing and harvesting, according to the Myanmar Food Security Cluster, a body coordinating the response of UN and aid organizations to food crises in the country. "Reduction in production in such areas will lead to deficit in overall food supply and will further escalate the already high food prices," the group told Reuters in a statement this week.

FAMILIAR TACTIC

Beyond the razing of Bin, seven other people told Reuters they witnessed the burning of another three villages in the Sagaing region in February: Ohn Hnae Bok, Hna Ma Sar Yit and Chaung-U. Three NASA images and eight Planet Labs photos show fires took place in those villages on the dates the people described the attacks.

Two people from Hna Ma Sar Yit said soldiers shot two people dead while three elderly people burned to death in their homes. Reuters could not independently verify their accounts. Myanmar's military has cut internet access across Sagaing region, complicating efforts to authenticate information. The junta did not respond to requests for comment.

Burning villages is a decades-old tactic of the Myanmar military, several analysts told Reuters, used to deprive insurgencies of support. Most recently, the army destroyed hundreds of villages in 2017 as it pushed hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya out of the Rakhine region.

Last month the United States formally determined that the Myanmar military committed genocide against the Rohingya. The United Nations has said Myanmar troops carried out a crackdown with "genocidal intent" that included mass killings, arson and rape. Without evidence, Myanmar's military said the Rohingya burned their own homes down.

The military is "attempting to crush, or at least reduce to a manageable level," resistance forces in Sagaing before the onset of the monsoon season in May or June, when troop movement becomes more difficult, said Anthony Davis, a security analyst with the UK-based Janes defence intelligence company.

The junta did not respond to requests for comment.

Top News / World+Biz

Myanmar / Myanmar Army

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Representational image. File photo: TBS
    Govt okays proposed tariff structure for Chattogram Port, rates to rise by up to 440%
  • Hasina and Taposh in an event in 2020. Photo: Collected
    Al Jazeera investigation: Hasina, in call with Taposh, talks using helicopter to shoot, crush protesters in July uprising
  • The Chinese Ambassador Yao Wen and Sayeda Jasmin Sultana Milky, director general of Global Health Emergence  Response Wing of the foreign ministry, received the team in the airport last night (24 July). Photo: Chinese embassy/Facebook
    Chinese medical team arrives in Dhaka to treat Milestone crash victims

MOST VIEWED

  • Representational image/Reuters
    Dollar gets upward push as BB buys $10m more in auction at even higher rate
  •  ABM Khairul Haque. File Photo: Collected
    Former chief justice Khairul Haque detained
  • File photo of Bangladesh Bank. Photo: TBS
    Governor Mansur orders withdrawal of BB dress code after directive draws criticism
  • Representational image. Photo: Collected
    Tariff talks: Bangladesh, US set for crucial virtual meeting on 29 July
  • Mehreen Ahmed speaking to media on 11 July 2025. Photo: Collected
    Court disposes of Dhaka girl's case against parents seeking 'protection from abuse'
  • Hasina and Taposh in an event in 2020. Photo: Collected
    Al Jazeera investigation: Hasina, in call with Taposh, talks using helicopter to shoot, crush protesters in July uprising

Related News

  • More than 20 civilians killed in Myanmar air strike on monastery: witnesses
  • ASEAN agrees Myanmar election is not a priority: Malaysia
  • Support for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh risks collapse: UN refugee agency
  • China risks global heavy rare-earth supply to stop Myanmar rebel victory
  • Bangladesh recalls ambassador from Myanmar

Features

Illustration: TBS

The future of medicine: How innovations will catalyse quantum leaps in healthcare

3h | The Big Picture
Photo: Collected

24 July: More than 1400 arrested, 3 missing coordinators found

1d | Panorama
Photo: Mehedi Hasan/TBS

Aggrieved nation left with questions as citizens rally to help at burn institute

2d | Panorama
Photo: Mehedi Hasan/TBS

Mourning turns into outrage as Milestone students seek truth and justice

2d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

There are many more examples of trials of Chief Justices in the world.

There are many more examples of trials of Chief Justices in the world.

1h | TBS Today
Why is there a massive conflict between Thailand and Cambodia?

Why is there a massive conflict between Thailand and Cambodia?

2h | TBS News Updates
Former Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque in prison

Former Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque in prison

2h | TBS Today
The Nvidia Chip Deal Trades Away the United States’ AI Advantage

The Nvidia Chip Deal Trades Away the United States’ AI Advantage

2h | Videos
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net