Radio Free Asia (RFA) has published a story based on the shocking footage found on a phone belonging to a soldier from the Myanmar Army’s Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 708, 4th Company.

Footage and photos retrieved from the soldier’s phone, which was found by a villager in Sagaing Region’s Ayadaw Township, shows the soldiers with captives and slaughtered civilian corpses in Ayadaw Township and also captures them talking about killing civilians.

There are photos of about 30 captured men at a monastery with their hands tied behind their backs.

Two of them are among five executed men photographed the next day.

There is also footage of soldiers, including the phone's owner, dressed in civilian clothes, an increasingly common military tactic, talking about killing civilians. One claims to have killed 26 people, eight by slitting their throats. The phone’s owner talks about being ordered to hack bodies into three pieces before burying them and says he is an expert in killing.

The lack of emotion in the soldier’s voices as they talk about what they have done suggests that killing has become normal behaviour for them. Commentators say the footage showing the soldiers in Sagaing is similar to footage released of soldiers terrorising Rohingyas during the army’s campaign of terror in 2017 in Rakhine State.

The photos and footage of prisoners and atrocities were taken between 28 April and 11 May 2022.