Myanmar’s opium poppy cultivation hits highest level in decade
Opium poppy cultivation in Burma’s Shan State, Sagaing Region, and Chinland has surged to its highest level in a decade, rising 17 percent in the past year as conflict and economic hardship push more farmers into the illicit trade, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) stated on Wednesday.
Poppy cultivation climbed to 53,100 hectares (205.02 square miles) this year from 45,200 hectares in 2024, the U.N. reported, underlining Myanmar’s position as the world’s main known source of illicit opium amid declining production in Afghanistan. Poppy cultivation was identified near the border with India, marking the first time it has been found there, signalling a wider geographic spread, the report added.
“Myanmar stands at a critical moment,” Delphine Schantz, the UNODC representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement. “The major expansion in cultivation shows how far the opium economy has re-established itself in recent years and indicates the potential for further growth in the future.” Read more
Regime attempts to seize scam center in Karen State
Sources close to the Karen National Union (KNU) told DVB that the regime launched a counteroffensive to recapture Minletpan village in southern Myawaddy Township of Karen State on Wednesday. Myawaddy is located on the Burma-Thailand border across from Mae Sot and 81 miles (130 km) east of the Karen State capital Hpa-An.
“I think the military wants to regain control of the scam center in the village and access to the evidence inside it,” a KNU source told DVB on the condition of anonymity. The KNU armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), seized a cyber scam center allegedly operated by the pro-regime Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA) in Myawaddy’s Minletpan village on Nov. 21.
Regime media reported on Dec. 3 that 1,954 undocumented foreign nationals have been detained at cyber scam centers in KK Park and Shwe Kokko since Nov. 18 and that 288 out of 635 buildings have been demolished in KK Park with 161 buildings sealed at Shwe Kokko to prevent their reuse in scam operations. KK Park is five miles (8 km) south of Myawaddy.
First building in Myawaddy’s Shwe Kokko blown up
Residents of Myawaddy Township in Karen State told DVB that regime forces demolished a 15-storey building out of the reported 161 buildings allegedly hosting cyber scam operations at a compound in Shwe Kokko on Wednesday. Shwe Kokko is located along the Burma-Thailand border 16 miles (26 km) north of Myawaddy, 24 miles (40 km) north of KK Park, and 92 miles (148 km) east of Hpa-An.
A Myawaddy resident told DVB on the condition of anonymity that this is the first time a building in Shwe Kokko, which is the headquarters of the pro-regime Border Guard Force (BGF), has been demolished. Analysts studying the conflict along the Burma-Thai border told DVB that this is an attempt by the regime to destroy evidence of its involvement in cyber scam operations.
The KNU stated on Tuesday that it rescued 3,582 workers, including 2,249 foreign nationals, from a raid on a scam center allegedly run by the DKBA in Myawaddy’s Minletpan village. A total of 2,640 of them were either transferred or awaiting to be transferred to authorities in Thailand or Burma, but 942 workers are refusing to leave the scam compound, according to the KNU.
News by Region
KARENNI—A total of 16 civilians were killed and 51 others were injured in November, according to the Karenni State Interim Executive Council (IEC). The 67 casualties were from attacks in Loikaw, Hpasawng, Demoso, Hpruso, Bawlakhe townships, as well as Pekon Township in Shan State.
Banyar Aung, an IEC secretary, told DVB that the five victims from airstrikes on three locations in Hpasawng on Nov. 21 were included in the IEC death toll of 16 last month. A total of 23 homes, two religious buildings, and eight vehicles were also destroyed, according to the IEC.
MAGWAY—Sources told DVB that 11 political prisoners convicted under Section 505-A of the Penal Code were released during the Nov. 27 amnesty from Central Prison on Nov. 27. Over 3,400 prisoners there are reportedly suffering from skin disease due to overcrowding and a lack of medicine.
The source told DVB that up to 70 inmates share a prison cell. The National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s Magway Region Chief Minister Aung Moe Nyo, Parliament Speaker U Tar, and an unspecified number of NLD lawmakers ousted in the 2021 coup, are held at Central Prison.
YANGON—A group calling itself the Mother Son Yangon Force claimed that it injured an unknown number of pro-military militia members during a grenade attack, without disclosing how many were used, on a regime administration office in Hlaingthaya Township on Monday.
“This was a warning not to get involved in the regime’s elections,” a member of the group told DVB. Hlaingthaya residents claimed that pro-military forces set up checkpoints on streets in the township and inspected pedestrians following the reported attack on Dec. 1.
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