New investigation finds junta tortured and killed aid workers to secure Russia-backed Dawei project

Mizzima

Myanmar junta forces tortured and killed at least five civilians, including three young humanitarian aid workers, during a July military operation to secure the Russian-backed Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ), as junta leader Min Aung Hlaing deepened economic ties with Moscow, a new investigation by Fortify Rights has found.

The killings occurred more than five years after Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, which triggered a nationwide armed uprising and has left communities across the country under repeated waves of military offensives and displacement.

According to Fortify Rights, a junta military column stopped six passenger vehicles and detained drivers and passengers in Khamaung Chaung village, Yebyu Township, Tanintharyi Region, on 9 July. Among those detained were three humanitarian workers, Eh Thar, 24, Leon, 24, and Myat Thu, 19, from The Ants Humanitarian Aid Team, a group founded by local youth in October 2024 to assist communities displaced by conflict in hard-to-reach parts of the region. Their bodies were found on 20 July in an oil-palm plantation between Aye Ka Ni and Wa Zun Taw villages. A resident who discovered the bodies, identified only as “Leo,” told Fortify Rights: “Their throats had been slit. Their faces had been beaten until they were crushed.” The three were cremated the same day.

A farm worker from West Sanchi village was found dead nearby, having reportedly been dressed in a People’s Defence Force uniform by soldiers before being shot, residents told Fortify Rights. During the same operation, junta troops occupying Wa Zun Taw village searched and looted homes before burning about 30 houses and a clinic, according to the investigation.

The operation coincided with accelerating cooperation between the Myanmar junta and Russia over the Dawei SEZ, a multi-billion-dollar port and industrial project in Tanintharyi Region first launched in 2008 and revived through a February 2025 memorandum of understanding between the two governments. On 5 June, the junta-controlled Launglon Economic Development Company signed a power plant agreement with Inter RAO, a Russian state-controlled energy company that the European Union sanctioned in July.

Survivors interviewed by Fortify Rights said they believed the military operation was intended to secure territory around the project. Deputy Commander-in-Chief Kyaw Swar Lin had visited the region on 24 June and ordered forces to secure “strategic economic assets,” including the Dawei deep-sea port, while also directing troops to clear resistance fighters from a nearby highway.

Fortify Rights also documented concerns over digital security following the killings. A humanitarian worker affiliated with The Ants told the group that the three victims had been carrying laptops and phones containing data about their work, and that their Telegram accounts became active again the day after their bodies were found, though no one had contacted the accounts. Fortify Rights said this does not independently confirm that the devices were accessed, but flagged it as a signal of possible risk to humanitarian networks operating in the area.

A separate account relayed to Fortify Rights described a monk sheltering displaced villagers in Kone Thar Yar Inn village being forced to remove his robes and killed; the group said it could not independently verify this account due to the continued presence of junta troops in the area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Min Aung Hlaing in Moscow on 18 August, where the two sides signed agreements covering energy, oil and gas, and satellite navigation. Putin and several senior Russian military officials are currently subject to International Criminal Court arrest warrants over war crimes in Ukraine, while ICC judges are separately considering a similar warrant against Min Aung Hlaing over crimes against humanity in Myanmar.

Fortify Rights drew a parallel to the Yadana and Yetagun gas pipeline projects of the 1990s and 2000s, when the military’s use of forced labour and killings to secure the pipeline corridor led to landmark litigation against American oil company Unocal, later acquired by Chevron. The group called on governments and companies involved in the Dawei project to divest. Neither the junta nor Russia’s embassy in Myanmar has issued a public response to the findings.