KIO refuses NLD request to gather bodies from Hpakant battleground

THE MASSIVE AUGUST 29 EXPLOSION AT A WAI AUNG KABA MINING COMPOUND IN HPAKANT, WESTERN KACHIN STATE.

A request made by representatives from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) that they be allowed to collect the bodies left behind by a massive August 29 explosion at a mining compound in the jade rich Hpakant (also Hpakan, Phakant) mining district in western Kachin State, has been rejected by the armed wing of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).

Officials with the Kachin Independence Army's battalion 6 based in Hpakant were not impressed by the NLD's request that they be allowed to cross KIA lines and travel to the partially destroyed compound belonging to the Wai Aung Kaba company where as many as 140 Burmese soldiers are said to have died following a huge explosion at the site.

Major N’hkum Zau Doi, commander of KIA Battalion 6 told the Kachin News Group last week that he had personally refused the NLD request because no one including KIA personnel are allowed to enter the site.

According to Major N’hkum Zau Doi the Red Cross, an officially neutral organization which is not affiliated with the government or other political groups will be allowed to visit the blast site to retrieve the dead, in keeping with longstanding rules of war which the KIO claims to follow.

According to sources on the ground government troops and KIA forces both have positions in and around the company compound. Given the current location of both the KIA and the government troops in the area access to the site would have to be made with at least the tacit approval of both parties.

A local villager who has gone near the site told KNG that it reeks of the smell of rotting corpses.