Land Mines in Burma

Lay Kee village was burned down. Everyone fled the village, and the Burma Army put landmines in and around the village. Some villagers came down from their hiding places and went back to see what they could find in their village. A boy, Hsa K'Tray Saw, age 13 (grade 2 in school), was with his family and sitting on a log in the destroyed village. He was hitting the ground as he waited for his mother to collect some vegetables. As he was hitting the ground he hit the landmine that the Burma Army had placed there. The blast blinded him in both eyes and wounded his face and upper torso. This is not just about caring for this boy. It is about the dictators army who placed the mines, burned his village and continues to attack his people. It is about a 13-year-old-boy who can't see and who is afraid and hopeless in a hiding place, high on a cold mountain.


The government of Myanmar continues to use landmines to terrorize ethnic minorities along the Thai - Myanmar border.

After chasing the villagers away from the area of Mon Township, the Burma Army entered the village and placed this landmine under a fireplace. A group of the resistance who were helping the displaced people in the area triggered this landmine. Three people died and eight more were injured, four of them seriously. The landmine was not the normal type used by the Burma Army. The hole dug for the mine was over one and one half meters deep and 15 centimeters wide. The hole seemed to be dug by an auger or post hole digger. The device was triggered by a blasting cap and what seems to be a piece of detonation cord that was placed on a stump and ran down to the mine. When the men gathered around the fire they stepped on a pressure plate that fired the blasting cap and ignited the detonation cord that set off the mine. One man suffered massive head trauma and died instantly, one man lost both legs and died instantly and one man died while being carried to a mobile clinic. The survivors are now being treated and when stabilized, some will need to be evacuated for more extensive medical care. In this area over 5000 people are in hiding and suffer from shortage of food and medicine. The Burma Army continues it patrols and laying of landmines. Two days walk North of this area the Burma Army continues to burn villages and on the 6th and 7th of December landed more troops by helicopter into a forward position.

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