The remains of around 30 people, including women and children, were found in charred vehicles on Saturday in Burma, according to a rebel official and an NGO, accusing the junta of having killed them.
Read also In Burma, the junta undermined by the defections of its soldiers
Photos were posted to social media on Saturday showing two trucks and a car set on fire on a road in Hpruso township, eastern Kayah state, with bodies inside.
An official in the rebellion against the ruling military junta, the People's Defense Forces (PDF), said its fighters found the vehicles in the morning.
“
When we went to check the area this morning, we found burnt corpses in two trucks.
We found 27 corpses,
”he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Another witness said that "
27 skulls
" were identified, "
but there were other corpses in the truck, so charred that we could not count them
".
According to the Myanmar Witness Observatory, "
35 people, including children and women, were burned and killed by the military on December 24 in Hpruso township
."
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said clashes erupted in Hpruso on Friday after soldiers tried to stop seven cars driving "
suspiciously
".
They killed a number of people in the violence, the spokesperson told AFP, without giving details.
Read also In Burma, the junta undermined by the defections of its soldiers
Burma has sunk into chaos since the February 1 putsch that ended a decade-long democratic transition.
In ten months, more than 1,300 civilians have been killed, according to a local NGO, the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP), which reports cases of torture and extrajudicial executions.
In response, PDF citizen militias have sprung up in the country and regularly inflict setbacks on the powerful Burmese army.
