Residents of Demawso Township accused the regime of deliberately keeping them in the dark after they’ve been without electricity since the last week of September when civilian resistance fighters clashed with the Burma Army (BA) in the western village of Kong Thar.
BA battalions are still receiving electricity while everyone else has none because they’re connected to another power grid in the neighbouring township, a man told Kantarawaddy Times, asking that his name not be used. In Demawso Township, clinics cannot keep medicines like insulin that need to be refrigerated, he said.
There’s also no telephone service in most of the township.
“We can’t call for help if we have a health emergency,” said another man who lives in the east.
On 25 November, an unknown group destroyed two power towers in Loikaw Township, between the villages of Hsaw Dee Dor and Dor Lo Shay.According to the Karenni Civil Society Network,155,449 people, or more than half the population of Karenni State, have been displaced by the regime’s offensives since the 1 February coup. Between 8 and 21 November, five people were killed, three wounded and twenty-one arrested by the armed forces.