Mai Rupa, May 18, Lashio
A pawn shop in Ward 7, Lashio city, northern Shan State, where the junta has regained control recently, was targeted by a group of robbers who stole 50 mobile phones and 81 grams of gold, according to a family member of the shop.
At around 3:45 p.m. on May 17, eight men in a Toyota Crown stopped at a pawn shop in Ward 7, Lashio. They pointed guns at the shop owners and took 50 mobile phones, 81 grams of gold, and a gold ring, according to a member of the victims’ family.
“They arrived in a Toyota Crown, and each of them had a pistol,” the pawn shop owner recalled.
She added that she was forced to give up her ring and that she was injured on the head when a robber attacked her with a knife as she tried to stop them from taking three motorcycles.
According to the victims, all the robbers are men in their ages around 30.
Also on May 13, a woman who riding on her motorcycle near Mansu monastery has been robbed by an armed man.
Since the junta’s military troops reentered back into the city, at least 15 crimes, including the robbery, banditry and stabbing, have happened during the days between April 22 to May 18.
Following the ceasefire agreement between the junta’s military and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), brokered by China, the MNDAA had to leave the city on April 21.
Immediately afterward, junta military troops entered the city and began administering it. Since then, the regime has attempted to resume all administrative operations but has only been able to restore a few units, with most of its apparatus remaining dysfunctional.
At present, the junta’s military is preparing to resume administrative operations by rehiring its former ward administrators who served until Operation 1027.
The MNDAA, a member of the Brotherhood Alliance, along with other resistance forces, seized Lashio and the junta’s Northeastern Military Command in the city in August, 2024. Nevertheless, after eight months of control, the MNDAA was compelled to return it to the junta’s military regime with Chinese engagement.
Translated by #KLT
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