White elephant taken from Taungup to Yangon

By DMG 11 Oct 2022

DMG Newsroom
11 October 2022, Taungup

Myanmar’s military regime has transported four elephants including a so-called white elephant that was born in July from Arakan State’s Taungup to Yangon, according to witnesses.

It has been about a month since the regime began preparing to take the male calf to Yangon, a local resident of Taungup Township’s Chaung Thonegwa Village told DMG.

“We noticed an increased junta presence some two months ago. On the Full Moon Day of Thadingyut [Sunday], the elephants were taken from a reserve forest to a hill near our village. The elephants were taken away in vehicles this morning,” he said.

The elephant calf referenced was born on July 24 in Letkyar Satine Village, Taungup Township, and meets seven out of the eight characteristics of white elephants, said an announcement from the regime’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation on August 3. The calf was born to a tamed pachyderm called Zar Nan Hla, owned by the Myanmar Timber Enterprise in Taungup.

Vehicles for transporting the elephants arrived at Shwe Lin Yone jetty in Taungup, where the animals were loaded onto a Navy ship, said a witness from Taungup.

“They [junta soldiers] blocked the road leading to the jetty before [vehicles carrying the elephants] arrived. Two Navy ships were waiting at Shwe Lin Yone jetty. As soon as the vehicles arrived, the elephants were loaded and the ships left,” he said.

Several junta vehicles provided security for the convoy carrying the elephants along the road to the jetty, and there was a heavy junta presence along the road.

The white elephant will be brought to Naypyidaw, according to a source close to the military.

“The ships will arrive at Thilawa Port in Yangon, and the [white elephant] will be brought from Yangon to Naypyidaw,” he said.

The calf is the sixth white elephant to have been discovered in Arakan State in recent decades. A male white elephant was discovered in Rathedaung in 2000. Two female white elephants were discovered in Maungdaw in 2002, and two more were found in 2010.

Those elephants are currently being kept in Naypyidaw and Yangon.