Fourteen police officers travelling in a civilian vehicle were killed on Wednesday morning after they failed to stop at a checkpoint set up by resistance forces in Sagaing Region’s Khin-U Township.
An officer of the Khin-U People’s Defence Force (PDF) said the group opened fire after the driver of the vehicle attempted to go through the checkpoint, located on the highway linking the towns of Khin-U and Ye-U, without stopping.
“The driver was shot in the head, and then their truck went off the road. It was only after they started shooting back at us that we realised they were the enemy,” said the PDF officer.
There were only a handful of PDF troops manning the checkpoint, but once the shooting started, members of allied groups soon arrived to provide backup, he added.
The two sides clashed for about 90 minutes, resulting in the death of everyone aboard the vehicle, including three female officers.
“The female police officers were not armed. All 14 of them were killed,” the PDF officer told Myanmar Now, noting that 11 weapons were seized at the scene.
Only one of the police officers, identified as Cpt Soe Htut Khaing, was in uniform, according to information released by a local defence force.
Photos shared by the group show tags bearing the dead officer’s name and insignia showing his rank, as well as the vehicle involved in the incident.
“They were in disguise, rising in the sort of truck that locals use to transport landfill. We thought they looked suspicious, so we tried to get them to stop. But they didn’t, so we shot at the driver, and that’s when the fighting started. The clash continued from around 9:30 until 11am,” said a Khin-U PDF spokesperson.
Residents of the area said that junta troops stationed in the village of Gway Kone fired on Kan Thit, a neighbouring village, with heavy artillery later that day, forcing thousands to flee.
The checkpoint where the clash took place was located between the two villages, according to PDF sources.
Earlier in the day, a similar incident at a junta checkpoint in Magway Region’s Pwintbyu Township claimed the lives of eight PDF fighters.
![Resistance fighters holding heavy weapons ammunition in central Myanmar. (Photo: Freedom Revolution Force [FRF])](https://myanmar-now.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/04/438869056_443267851680128_1706386881626943924_n-390x220.jpeg)
