Myanmar Spring Chronicle – Scenes from August 18
(MoeMaKa), August 19, 2026
Hatred, Extrajudicial Killings, Accountability, and Justice
In recent days, a video circulating on social media has drawn widespread condemnation from users shocked by the extreme brutality it depicts.
In brief, the video shows four or five men armed with long knives surrounding an older woman. Despite her pleas for mercy, they brutally hack her to death. Because the perpetrators are dressed in civilian clothes, it is impossible to determine simply from the video which armed group they belong to. However, after the short video began circulating, people familiar with the incident said on social media that the perpetrators were members of the Warazup militia—also known as the Min Zay Thant militia after its leader—which operates in the Tanai-Hukawng area along the border between Sagaing Region and Kachin State. The victim was reportedly a civilian, while the reason for her killing remains unknown. Whatever the reason, there can be no justification for such an extrajudicial and unlawful killing.
There have also been claims on social media that the killing took place more than two years ago, perhaps around three years ago. It is possible that the perpetrators recorded the brutal killing and that the footage was later leaked unintentionally. Some armed organizations that commit similarly brutal killings deliberately release such footage to intimidate their enemies and the public, but most perpetrators or organizations do not normally publicize such acts.
Last year, an armed group operating in Ye Township known as Ye Belu deliberately circulated a video showing the beheading of a village administrator serving under the military. Most videos of killings, however, appear to have reached the public through unintended leaks.
A few years ago, in Mon Taing Pin village in Sagaing Region, junta troops reportedly killed around 28 detained villagers. Photographs and videos related to the killings eventually appeared on media platforms after phones belonging to the soldiers involved were lost during fighting. The soldiers had used their personal phones to photograph and record the incident themselves.
Similarly, a video showing armed personnel brutally killing a woman circulated in 2022. In that case, 25-year-old Daw Aye Mar Tun was beaten and then shot dead by members of a PDF battalion in Tamu District. The incident occurred in broad daylight on a public road. Even if the video had never circulated, there were eyewitnesses to what happened.
When armed personnel commit killings like these, they sometimes appear to record their actions out of a sense of satisfaction or pride. Such footage may therefore be less a form of deliberate propaganda than a record that was never intended for public release but later leaked.
Although the military that seized power claims to be the government, it is widely known that its forces have killed civilians on the ground after accusing them of being PDF members, PDF supporters, or on similar grounds. Such abuses have occurred throughout successive periods of civil war, particularly in ethnic areas that served as battlefields. Yet people living in cities far from the front lines, in central Myanmar, and in regions previously untouched by civil war often knew little about them. People in Shan State were well aware of extrajudicial killings occurring there, just as communities in Karen, Kachin, and Karenni (Kayah) areas knew about killings in their regions. But people in what is commonly called “mainland” or central Myanmar often remained largely unaware of such realities.
Since the 2021 military coup, however, the battlefield has spread across much of the country, reaching central Myanmar as well as Bago, Mandalay, and Sagaing regions. Along with the expansion of the war, extrajudicial killings have become increasingly frequent.
The spread of the battlefield has involved not only direct clashes between armed forces but also ambushes and assassinations in towns and cities. Over the past five years, not only members of armed organizations but also civilians accused of supporting opposing armed groups—as well as teachers, healthcare workers, and other civil servants—have been assassinated in numerous incidents.
Resistance forces, having chosen armed struggle as a means of resisting the military that seized power, have also shown weaknesses in systematically establishing, disseminating, and enforcing rules governing warfare and the treatment of civilians. Where armed units operate independently at the grassroots level, where command structures are weak, and where unlawful abuses cannot effectively be punished, extrajudicial killings have occurred repeatedly.
In the Saw area, for example, members of local People’s Defence Forces were implicated in the killing of an entire family, along with a guest, after which a vehicle, gold, and money were taken. In another case in a village in Chaung-U Township, young women and men collecting discarded bottles and cans were reportedly raped, killed, and their bodies concealed. Such incidents have occurred during the past several years.
In their dealings with civilians, some armed individuals appear to have little understanding of courts, police procedures, or the rule of law. They seem to assume that because they possess weapons, they also possess the authority to decide whether another person should live or die.
When innocent civilians are killed by airstrikes on towns, villages, and camps for displaced people, responsibility lies with those who carry out the bombing as well as those who order it. By the same principle, those on the other side who execute innocent civilians merely on the basis of suspicion or accusation must also be held accountable for those killings.
The recently circulated video can understandably provoke powerful emotions. It may generate anger, demands for revenge, and calls for action driven by outrage.
At the same time, every innocent civilian life taken has equal value. In seeking justice, it is important to look beyond emotion and the desire for revenge, to recognize the equal value of every individual life, and to demand accountability for all such killings.