Residents of Mawlu town, Indaw Township, in Sagaing Region told DVB that at least five People’s Defence Force (PDF) members were killed and two civilians were injured by airstrikes carried out by the Myanmar Air Force on Wednesday. 

“The jet dropped two bombs on a PDF office which was a repurposed village clinic,” an Indaw resident told DVB on the condition of anonymity, adding that the office’s location was allegedly sent by regime informers. 

Indaw, located 209 miles (336 km) north of the Sagaing Region capital Monywa, was seized by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and its allied PDF in April. 

Residents of Sagaing’s Kawlin Township told DVB that at least two civilians and seven PDF members were killed by airstrikes and “suicide drones,” or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) that detonate upon impact, carried out by regime forces on a PDF camp on Jan. 20. 

A PDF source told DVB on the condition of anonymity that a regime counteroffensive, led by 200 troops, against the PDF in Kawlin displaced at least 10,000 residents from 10 villages since Jan. 20. Kawlin is located 176 miles (283 km) north of Monywa. It was seized by the PDF in November 2023.

The Union Election Commission (UEC) held two rounds of voting in the regime’s 2025-26 elections in 23 Sagaing townships on Dec. 28 and Jan. 11. It will hold the third and final round of voting in Sagaing’s Kanni and Salingyi townships on Jan. 25. 

The UEC is unable to hold polls in 12 of Sagaing’s 37 townships, including Indaw and Kawlin, due to “a lack of conditions to hold free-and-fair elections.”