Irrawaddy regional assembly on Tuesday issued an eviction order to ghosts who have apparently been possessing students at a high school in Myaungmya, some 150 kilometres west of Rangoon, in the Irrawaddy Delta.

Irrawaddy’s Chief Minister Mahn Johnny, accompanied by Department of Health staff and local officials, visited the high school in Shan Yekyaw village on Tuesday and spoke to teachers, students and their parents.

After the meeting, the chief minister read out an order banishing the malevolent spirits from the school’s premises while police officers ritualistically fired 18 warning shots into the air.

The possessions are reported to have begun at Shan Yekyaw High School in August after the school expanded its compound into a neighbouring cemetery. To date, 18 girls have been “possessed”, causing them to vomit, cry and scream hysterically.

The schoolchildren believe the ghosts are exacting revenge for the school’s encroachment into the cemetery.

The regional chief minister’s edict on 25 October said a vacant plot of land has now been found and will be designated part of the cemetery in lieu of the graveyard land that was apportioned for a new school facility.

“The chief minister in Shan Yekyaw village yesterday read out an order clarifying that the plot of cemetery land is now part of the school and that spiritual beings dwelling in the plot must depart,” said Khine Zin Oo, Myaungmya’s MP in the regional parliament.

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Myaungmya district police commander Lt-Col Nyunt Zaw said that after the chief minister read out the statement, police officers fired 18 shots in the air, signalling the ghosts to leave.

Yesterday, DVB reported on a gruesome incident from Rangoon Division where three young children were beaten to death after a local man purported to exorcise them of evil spirits.