minority, killing and injuring many people including women and children, survivors and aid workers said.
The offensive in Western and Northern Karen State also involved the burning of homes and rice barns, while landmines have been laid in recent days "to stop people returning to their villages," said the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a relief and advocacy group. At least 11 people were reportedly confirmed dead in recent days, but that figure was believed to be higher as not all areas could be reached.
In a message from the area monitored by BosNewsLife, FBR said its team members discovered the bodies of "several victims" some severely mutilated including Saw Po De, a 40 year-old man, who was "beheaded" in Ker Der Gah village.
Since last week villagers have been killed in new attacks in several regions, including in Paw My Der village where FBR established that Saw Hsa Rae Sae, 17, was shot and killed, and his friend, Saw Kyay Nu Wah, 18, was shot and wounded in his right leg. Earlier on April 15, another Karen farmer, identified as 31-year-old Saw Wey Htoo was shot dead in his fields near Plako of Muthraw area by a Burmese troops, FBR added.
Survivors also described how they came under attack as they tried to flee their burning homes which had been shelled. In one incident, a nine year-old girl, Naw Eh Ywa Paw, was shot, while her father and grandmother was killed, her mother said in a recorded statement released by FBR.
FAMILY HIDING
"My family and I were hiding in an area near Ta Kweh Wah Hta," said 28-year-old Naw Bee
Kho, a mother of four, as she recalled the March 27 incident.
"When we had to move to another place, no one knew where the next hiding place was. My [80-year-old] mother-in-law was sick and could not walk so my husband carried her on his back. My husband, his mother and my 9 year old daughter…were walking up a ridgeline [when] Burma Army soldiers began to shoot at us," she added, according to a transcript.
"My husband’s mother fell off his back in the shooting and… he went back to help her. The Burma Army then shot my mother in law in the neck and my husband in the chest. Both fell down and all of our group scattered."
It was apparently her second husband to be shot and killed. Her previous husband fighting for the outnumbered Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) was also killed by Burmese troops, investigators said.
She said her 9-year-old daughter ran to her "and I saw that she was shot" as well, in her back. "At first she was able to walk on her own, but later she was not able to." Her husband’s friend carried her daughter accompanied by a couple carrying two other sick children.
"HIGHER GROUND"
They were constantly on the run in an effort to leave the frontlines and finally reached "higher ground" where FBR team members were among those treating her daughter. She survived only because the bullet had not touched vital organs after it entered her back, medics said.
Villagers have been attacked amid an ongoing struggle between the current military government, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and predominantly Christian communities including the Karen and smaller Karenni, Shan, Mon, Chin, Kachin, Arakan and Rohingya minorities.
The SPDC consists of a group of generals who have governed Burma, also known as Myanmar, by decree without a constitution or legislature since 1988, when armed forces suppressed massive pro-democracy demonstrations.
SPDC officials have denied wrongdoing and accuse Westerners and "internal destructive elements" of spreading "fabrications." Like previous governments in the country, the generals claim they have a sacred obligation to hold the nation of 43 million together and stamp out "separatist rebellions" among its 135 officially recognized races.
NO CEASEFIRE
A BosNewsLife team established earlier in Burma that several ceasefire agreements have been broken and that Karen villagers are constantly forced to resettle.
The KNLA, one of the few rebel groups still holding out, says it has been fighting for equal rights and an autonomous region since World War Two after British allies abandoned them. Christian human rights groups claim the SPDC sees Christianity as a threat to its powerbase and ideology and has encouraged non Christians, including Buddhists, to join its forces as part of efforts to divide ethnic and religious minorities.
"The situation in Karen State is clearly deteriorating into a humanitarian crisis. The Burma Army is hunting down and shooting innocent civilians and, as a result, thousands have been displaced," said Mervyn Thomas, Chief Executive of UK-based religious rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
Thomas said the United Nations Security Council must address the crisis in Burma urgently and use its power to require "the Burmese regime to stop the slaughter and engage in tripartite dialogue with the democratic and ethnic groups." The CSW official said it was important for the international community to find ways to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance to those trapped in the conflict zones which are "so far unreached by the major aid agencies and unreported by the world’s media." (With BosNewsLife reporting from Burma, BosNewsLife Research and BosNewsLife News Center).
