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Editor’s note: This story contains images and descriptions that some readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

By Khin Maung Soe and Nayrein Kyaw for RFA Burmese

Aug. 10, 2021

Two armed men stand behind a tangle of bodies leaking blood which congeals in the dust. Each of the five victims is blindfolded, hands tied behind their back, and appear to have been killed by gunfire or a blade to the throat. The armed men – one with his rifle slung over his shoulder and the other smoking a cigarette – strike a nonchalant pose that is recorded for posterity in a series of grisly photos captured on a soldier’s phone.

These graphic images are among a cache of files recently obtained by RFA Burmese that document atrocities apparently committed by soldiers during military operations in Myanmar’s war-torn Sagaing region. The files include a video in which those two same armed men brag about how many people they have killed, and how they have killed them.

The content was retrieved from a cell phone that was found by a villager in Sagaing’s Ayadaw township where the military had been conducting raids amid an offensive against the anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group. An intermediary who obtained the video and photos forwarded them to RFA in Washington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Khin Maung Soe and Nayrein Kyaw for RFA Burmese.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.