Six dead in clashes in Burma, anti-junta militia says

At least six opposition rebels have been killed after days of clashes in Burma, an anti-junta militia said on Sunday, while the UK and US condemned military violence against them. civilians.

Read also: Burma: the junta blocks the internet and restricts access to information

“Six members of our organization who were trying to protect the people in Mindat attacked (the junta forces) and sacrificed their lives for the national revolution

,

”

the Chinland Defense Force (CDF), an established militia, said in a statement. in the town of Mindat, which has become a hotspot of unrest in the western state of Chin.

A spokesperson for the CDF told AFP that ten of their fighters were wounded and that five residents of Mindat had been arrested by the army.

The country has been in turmoil since Burmese generals overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government on February 1, sparking a massive uprising that authorities have sought to quell by force.

Rebels have created local militias equipped with homemade weapons to protect their towns from security forces, who have killed at least 790 civilians, according to a local watch group.

With mobile data blocked across the country, information about the fighting is slow to come out, and verification on the ground is made more difficult as residents fear reprisals.

The CDF spokesman told AFP that militia fighters set fire to several army trucks and ambushed reinforcing troops, while the military attacked the town from there. 'artillery.

"We will be back soon"

On Sunday, the CDF had withdrawn into the jungle, he said.

"But we will come back to attack soon

," he said.

“We only have homemade weapons.

It was not enough ”.

He added that residents who remained in Mindat - under martial law since Thursday - were afraid to leave their homes for fear of being targeted by the military.

Pope Francis called on Sunday, during a mass in honor of Burma at the Vatican, the Burmese people to

"keep the faith"

and to end bloodshed.

The embassies of the United States and the United Kingdom on Saturday called on security forces to end the violence in the city of more than 40,000 inhabitants.

"The use by the army of weapons of war against civilians, including this week in Mindat, is a further demonstration of the extremities to which the regime is ready to stoop in order to stay in power"

, denounced the U.S. Embassy in a tweet on Saturday. The British embassy has ruled that the violence in Mindat

"cannot be justified".

"Evidence of atrocities must be sent to the (United Nations Independent Investigation Mechanism for Burma) so that the perpetrators can be held accountable," she tweeted.

State newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported on Sunday that a military court would be convened to try

"perpetrators of terrorist attacks"

in Mindat.

At least 796 people have been killed by law enforcement since February 1, according to a local NGO, and nearly four thousand people have been imprisoned.