Guerrilla fighters from the main ethnic Karen fighting force battling Myanmar’s military government have withdrawn from the eastern border town of Myawaddy two weeks after forcing the army to give up its defense.
Saw Win Myint, a commander of a military unit under the Karen National Union, the leading political body for the Karen ethnic minority that is part of the resistance against military rule in Myanmar, inspects the damaged armory in the captured army base of Infantry Battalion 275 in Myawaddy township in Kayin state, Myanmar, Friday April 12, 2024. Soldiers who abandoned the base two weeks ago were allowed by another armed group on Tuesday to raise the military government's flag there.
Despite its advantage in arms and manpower, Myanmar’s army had been on the defensive since last October, when an alliance of three ethnic rebel groups launched an offensive in the country’s northeast.since then have captured major swaths of territory in northern Shan state on the border with China, made significant gains in Rakhine state in the west, and continue to pressure the army elsewhere.
KNU spokesperson Padoh Saw Taw Nee told journalists on Wednesday that its forces had withdrawn temporarily from Myawaddy as Border Guard Force units brought the soldiers hiding near the bridge to the abandoned Infantry Battalion 275 base, where they raised Myanmar’s national flag in place of the standard hoisted by the guerrillas when it occupied it.
A member of the Karen National Union/ Karen National Liberation Army-Peace Council, another Karen organization based in Myawaddy, told The Associated Press that the border guards had helped arrange the safe flight of the soldiers to their bridge encampment two weeks ago and provided them with food and weapons. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release information.
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