Two people were killed and seven were injured when a bomb exploded in the border town of Myawaddy in eastern Karen state on Friday, while those behind the attack remain at large.
A Myawaddy resident who witnessed the incident told DVB that the bomb exploded at the town’s night market at around 8pm as two men on a motorbike pulled up they were; ‘blown to pieces.’
“The bomb exploded as the motorbike pulled over and the two men riding on it were blown to pieces,” said the Myawaddy resident who asked to remain anonymous.
“It is still unclear who is behind the attack.”
“[The victims] were friendly faces in the town. One of them had Indian features and was a part of an organisation which I can’t identify exactly”, but DVB suspects that he was a member of a cease fire group, although cannot confirm this at the time being.
However the eyewitness speculated that it could have been local members of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) who were behind the attack. Citing their discontent that the Burmese Army had ordered the group’s Karen and DKBA flags be taken down on Friday whilst senior SPDC army officials, including chief of Military Affairs Security, lieutenant general Ye Myint were due to visit the town.
The visit was however subject to a suspected anti-government Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) assassination attempt. Which the KNLA suggests killed 5 people in the Burmese convoy, which reportedly headed back to Kawkreik where it had come from, whilst the road was ‘cleared’, a endeavour which reportedly took the life of two more SPDC soldiers.
The attacks on Friday took place amid tensions in the region between the Burmese Army and a local commander of the DKBA ceasefire group, colonel Saw Hla Bwe aka Na Kham Hmwe, who has defied the Burmese government’s Border Guard Force (BGF) transformation plan, which looked to assimilate ethnic armies into the Burmese army.
For his trouble the defecting colonel is now said to be being hunted by the Burmese, wrestling as ever, to control the restive peripheries of the country.
