The NGO Save the Children announced on Saturday 25 December that two members of its staff in Burma were "missing" after the discovery of more than 30 charred bodies in vehicles taken the day before in an attack blamed on the military junta .

Photos were posted on social media on Saturday showing two trucks and a car set on fire with bodies inside, on a road in Hpruso township in eastern Kayah state.

"When we went to check the area this morning, we found corpses burned in two trucks. We found 27 corpses," an official of the rebellion opposed to the junta told AFP on condition of anonymity. power, the People's Defense Forces (PDF).

Two employees "caught in the incident"

Another witness said that "27 skulls" were identified, "but there were other bodies in the truck, so charred that we could not count them."

Save The Children then announced that two of its staff had been "caught up in the incident" and were missing.

"We have confirmation that their private vehicle was attacked and set on fire," the British children's rights NGO said in a statement.

>> To read also: "I could not kill innocent people": in Burma, soldiers choose to defect

The two employees were returning home after a humanitarian mission in the region, according to Save the Children, adding that they had suspended their works in several regions.

"We are horrified by the violence targeting innocent civilians and our staff who dedicate themselves to humanitarian tasks, helping millions of children in need in Burma," commented the leader of this century-old British NGO, Inger Ashing.

The NGO targeted by an attack in October

In October, the NGO deplored the destruction of its offices in the city of Thantlang, in the west, in a bombardment by the junta which had also razed dozens of houses after fighting with a local group rebel against the junta. 

According to the Myanmar Witness Observatory, "35 people, including children and women, were burned and killed by the military on December 24 in Hpruso township." 

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun admitted that clashes erupted in Hpruso on Friday after soldiers tried to stop seven cars driving "suspiciously".

They killed a number of people in the violence, the spokesperson told AFP, without giving details.

>> To read also: In Burma, resistance to the junta foolproof

Burma has sunk into chaos since the February 1 putsch that ended a decade-long democratic transition.

In ten months, more than 1,300 civilians have been killed, according to a local NGO, the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP), which reports cases of torture and extra-judicial executions.

In response, PDF citizen militias have sprung up in the country and regularly inflict setbacks on the powerful Burmese army.

Ten months after the military coup against her government, former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, is under house arrest.

With AFP

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