Tak – Footage captures the latest moment Myanmar soldiers engage Karen resistance fighters… gunfire rings out deafeningly, jolting Mae Sot border residents awake in the early hours of the morning. Some were in the middle of cooking when they had to scramble for cover, while the village headman was forced to broadcast an announcement over the public-address system ordering residents to stay indoors — before it was discovered that fences, ceilings, and walls of five homes in Maha Wan subdistrict had been pierced by bullets, with rounds also landing inside a temple.
The fighting between Myanmar Army Light Infantry Division 22 and soldiers of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in the area of Ban Min La Pan and Ban Pha Lu Noi, Myawaddy Township, Myawaddy District, Karen State, Myanmar — directly across from Ban Huai Maha Wong and Ban Mae Kon Ken in Maha Wan Subdistrict, Mae Sot District, Tak Province — had gone quiet for two to three days during the Buddhist Lent period.
But on the morning of 2 August, a sustained burst of intense gunfire erupted, catching Thai-side residents completely off guard. Some had been asleep and were startled awake in the early morning hours, with no idea at first which side the shooting was coming from. Subsequent checks revealed that Myanmar Army troops had pushed forward to engage Karen forces, though no return fire came from the Karen side at their base positions.
A correspondent reported that once the gunfire subsided, officers from the Ratchamanu Special Task Force Unit in Mae Sot District, the Naresuan Task Force Command, Border Patrol Police Company 346 in Mae Sot District, as well as the subdistrict headman, village headmen, and Maha Wan Subdistrict civil defense volunteers, broadcast an announcement over the public-address system temporarily prohibiting people from leaving their homes.
They then moved in to inspect the area and found that homes in Village No. 9 had sustained damage — machine-gun bullets had pierced fences, walls, partitions, and ceilings of five houses. Bullets had also crossed into Wat Huai Maha Wong in Village No. 9, Maha Wan Subdistrict, and officials were in the process of investigating.
Residents of Village No. 9 said they had been up early cooking when the gunfire rang out, and that this round of fire into the village by foreign armed forces appeared to be clearly intentional. They said shooting had been happening all along, and that on previous occasions, when the damage was minor, they had not reported it to authorities. Sometimes multiple houses were hit, but this time five homes were struck. Even though Village No. 9 sits in the trajectory of fire from the fighting, residents said they believed the shots were deliberate rather than stray or unintentional. A monk at the temple also reported that small-arms rounds had entered the temple grounds.
It should be noted that the problem of fighting between Myanmar troops and resistance forces along the Myawaddy border, directly opposite Mae Sot District, has affected Thai-side villagers on multiple occasions — for example, on 1 April 2026, heavy clashes caused bullets and heavy weapons fire to cross into Thai territory, resulting in property damage and four to six injuries.
On 5 July 2026, 60mm mortar rounds and machine-gun bullets were found to have struck rooftops and homes in Maha Wan Subdistrict, requiring officers from the Ratchamanu Special Task Force Unit to rush in and carry out disposal operations.
And now, most recently, on 2 August 2026, a burst of gunfire from an early-morning clash sent bullets raining down on five more houses and into the temple grounds in Village No. 9, as described above.
