Early one morning in March, a group of Myanmar soldiers marched into a village in the country’s east near the border with Thailand.
They had been engaged in days of intense fighting with armed groups opposed to the February 2021 coup – in which the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders and took power – subjecting the area to intense shelling and aerial bombardment.
Many of the people of Nam Neang village had taken refuge in the surrounding jungle but 18 had sought sanctuary with three monks in the temple, according to the Shan Human Rights Foundation.
On March 11, the soldiers surrounded the temple and demanded those inside come out.
They “shot them dead … took photos of the corpses and shared the photos on social media”, said the foundation, adding that the soldiers claimed to have killed anti-coup fighters.
The incident, a crime…
