Villages in the northern part of Taze Township, Sagaing region were set on fire by the Junta troops in the last week of May.

Nearly 2,000 local residents from seven villages in Taze Township, Sagaing region have been displaced to safe places and some are staying in monasteries, schools and poultry farms.

The seven villages are Ywar Shay, Thae Sar, Thit Say Kone, Aung Chan Thar, Nabet Ngwe, Gway Kone and Yele Kyun.

A local resident who is helping the displaced people told Mizzima that due to the military’s arson attacks the villagers have lost their houses and all their belongings, fleeing since the last week in May.

Junta troops started burning down the villages along the Yae U- Taze Road, south of Taze Township in the third week of May. Then, they set fire to the villages in the north of Taze Township.

The Military Council also cut off the telecommunication networks, even telephone calls are interrupted and the internet is not available at all in Taze Township, a local resident from Taze Township reported.

'Arson is a strategy to hide clues, one of Military Council’s tactics. They used to shoot people in the village for no reason. I think, it is difficult to control soldiers in the Military Council’s army,” said CDM officer Captain Zin Yaw, a former Myanmar army officer who joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).

According to data compiled by “Data for Myanmar” from May 2021 to April 2022, more than 6,000 homes were burned by the Military Council in the Sagaing region alone. The Military Council has reportedly carried out more arson attacks since April 2022.