Aid workers in Karen State’s Myawaddy Township told DVB that around 4,000 civilians, who were forced to flee their homes and are living in a displacement camp along the Thaungyin (Moei) River, are in urgent need of food and medicine. Myawaddy is located 81 miles (130 km) east of the Karen State capital Hpa-An.
Aid worker Zaw Tun told DVB that the 4,000 civilians have been staying at an informal Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp along the river near the border of Thailand after fleeing a regime counteroffensive in Thingan Nyinaung village to recapture the Kawkareik–Myawaddy stretch of the Asia Highway from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) on Sept. 6.
The Karen Information Center (KIC) news agency, which covers Karen State, reported on Sept. 11 that regime forces have reasserted control in Myawaddy by replacing Karen Border Guard Force (BGF) members deployed at key locations, including the Myanmar-Thailand Friendship Bridge 1.
Myawaddy residents told DVB that two airstrikes were carried out by the Myanmar Air Force on Laykaykaw town and Rathegu village, located 7-10 miles (11-16 km) south of Myawaddy, on Sept. 8. No casualties were reported.
Mann Aung Pyi Soe, the chairperson of the Karen National Democratic Party (KNDP) based in Hpa-An, told DVB that the reopening of the Asia Highway would be beneficial for residents of Karen State with the resumption of Myanmar-Thailand border trade.
Sources on the frontline along the Asia Highway in Myawaddy told DVB that regime forces received support from the pro-military BGF and Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) in its counteroffensive, which began on April 12, 2024.
Naing Maung Zaw, the BGF spokesperson, told media that its forces did not assist with the regime counteroffensive.
“Karen people are not united,” a Myawaddy resident told DVB on the condition of anonymity, adding that the Karen armed groups have “diverse interests” in the resistance to the 2021 military coup.
Richard Horsey, the senior Myanmar advisor at the International Crisis Group (ICG), told DVB that the Myanmar Air Force could bomb the BGF headquarters at Shwe Kokko if it refused to fight alongside pro-regime forces in Myawaddy.
A DKBA source told DVB that its Adjutant General Saw Sein Win’s home was attacked by a regime “suicide” drone — an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) which detonates upon impact — in Wawlay Myaing town of Myawaddy on Aug. 3.
The regime Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) blacklisted the Chit Linn Myaing Toyota Company — reportedly owned by the BGF leader Saw Chit Thu — along with 196 other companies for “failing to deposit foreign currency earnings from exports” in June.
The BGF and the DKBA announced this month that they would assist with the regime general elections scheduled to begin on Dec. 28 in 102 out of Myanmar’s 330 townships.
The Karen National Union (KNU), one of Myanmar’s oldest ethnic armed groups, has called on citizens to boycott the December elections. It was designated as a “terrorist” group by the regime in Naypyidaw last month.
The Union Election Commission (UEC) will hold the first phase of the regime general elections in only three out of seven Karen State townships. The KNU has seized at least 200 regime outposts since 2021, according to the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP – Myanmar).
