A/HRC/39/CRP.2 end of March 2016 in Manton Township, Shan State after the Tatmadaw intentionally shot multiple times at her house. She said her husband, who was Ta’ang, was suspected of being a member of the TNLA and that their house was targeted for that reason.234 157. The importance of the counter-insurgency justification for its actions against civilians appears to be borne out by the care taken by the Tatmadaw to disguise civilian victims as members of EAOs when killing them. Witnesses reported many cases where the bodies of civilian men were later found in uniforms of an EAO.235 In one case, a source attested that her father, accompanied by another villager, was taken by the Tatmadaw on the way to their farm in Bhamo Township, Kachin State, in late January 2018. A month later, their corpses were found in a ditch, showing signs of bullet wounds and in KIA uniforms.236 158. Tatmadaw killings are often brutal.237 For example, a witness reported that Tatmadaw soldiers beheaded his father and then burned his body, apparently on suspicion of collaborating with the KIA during the Northern Alliance offensive in Muse Township, Shan State on 6 December 2016.238 Other witnesses reported that the Tatmadaw killed civilians in public and/or in front of their family members. 239 For example, a witness said that, on 18 September 2014, the Tatmadaw beat her father and the village administrator to death, because they were suspected of supporting Shan ethnic armed groups. The beatings occurred in the centre of their village, in Mong Hsu Township, Shan State, in front of villagers and the families of the victims.240 Another witness reported that her father was killed by the Tatmadaw in June 2011 in Puta-O Township, Kachin State, because he refused to agree to her marrying a Tatmadaw officer who she did not want to marry. Her father was beaten in front of his family so severely that his stomach burst and he died as a result of his injuries. 241 The mother of another victim reported that, while her son was being tortured and subsequently killed by Tatmadaw soldiers in a village of Namhsan Township, Shan State in late June 2017, she could hear her son crying out her name for help.242 159. The Mission received credible reports of the Tatmadaw committing mass killings in conflict prone areas in northern Myanmar. In one reported incident, the Tatmadaw detained at least six women and five men on 25 June 2016 in Long Mon village, near the sub-Township of Mong Yaw, Shan State, after hostilities erupted between the Tatmadaw and the TNLA. Seven bodies were later found in shallow graves. In July 2016, a Tatmadaw senior general admitted publically that five villagers had been killed by the Tatmadaw during interrogation and that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.243 Similarly, reports suggests that a mass grave containing the remains of 18 villagers, including a two-year old boy, was discovered in a forest near the Kokang village of Mung Lung Nam Hkye Ho in Monekoe Township, Shan State, on 20 December 2016 during fighting between the Northern Alliance and the Tatmadaw.244 Accounts indicate that the bodies were badly burned before they were buried. The 18 villagers were reportedly detained by the Tatmadaw on 28 November 2016.245 3. Torture and other ill-treatment 160. Similar patterns emerged for cases of torture and other forms of ill-treatment, often against women and children, not only men, to obtain information or confessions regarding the activities of EAOs, or as punishment for perceived sympathy for the Tatmadaw’s 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 42 PI-065. K-137, K-139, PI-074, PI-106, V-093, V-019, V-020. PI-106. PI-034, PI-041, PI-062, PI-074, PI-090. PI-041. PI-034, PI-052, PI-074, PI-090. PI-034. PI-090. PI-074 V-021, V-022; see this chapter, section C.3: Lack of recourse. From the 88th and 99th LIDs. V-131, V-132.