Aerial assault by Myanmar’s military kills mother, three daughters in Sagaing Region

An aerial attack by Myanmar’s military killed a woman and her three daughters at their home in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township on Thursday, according to local sources. The attack, carried out by a paramotor launched from the junta’s Northwestern Regional Military Command headquarters in Monywa, targeted Mu Kan Gyi, a large village in the township. Four others were also injured, a local resistance official said. The paramotor dropped two bombs, one of which landed on the house where the victims were living, according to the official from the Depayin Township People’s Administration Organisation. “Because it was a direct hit, everyone in the family was harmed. Those in the surrounding area sustained only minor injuries,” the official said. Local residents and township officials said there were no ground military operations or clashes in the village at the time of the attack. All of the victims were civilians, they added. “There was no fighting,” a local woman said. “If it’s a resistance-controlled area, they don’t care whether they’re shooting at civilians or resistance fighters.” Mu Kan Gyi, a village of about 1,500 households along the Mu River, has repeatedly faced airstrikes and arson attacks by the military. Nearly 1,000 homes have been destroyed, according to local accounts. Earlier this year, a bombing damaged the roof of the village school. An airstrike on a Buddhist monastery in August of last year killed five people, including a novice monk and two temple assistants. Residents have received air raid warnings through emergency walkie-talkies, but recent flooding along the Mu River has made it more difficult for them to seek shelter, a township administration official said. “Water rose recently, so the bomb shelters filled with water, and in some houses, bomb shelters haven’t been re-dug yet,” the official said. Myanmar Now repeatedly contacted Aung Zaw Oo, Sagaing Region’s junta-appointed minister for planning, economics, and finance and the regional spokesperson for the regime, for comment on the paramotor attack but was unable to reach him. Resistance forces control much of Depayin Township, including most of its villages and the town of Saingpyin. The military’s control is largely limited to the township’s administrative centre, located just over 40 miles from the regional capital Monywa. The attacks come amid an intensification of aerial assaults in Sagaing Region, a stronghold of resistance to military rule following the 2021 coup. The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council, has said civilians are bearing the brunt of increasingly frequent airstrikes. It also noted the military’s growing use of paramotors and drones, which can be harder to detect in advance and leave civilians with less time to escape. Recent attacks elsewhere in Sagaing Region have also killed civilians. On Tuesday, three gyrocopters attacked a village jetty along the Chindwin River in Budalin Township, striking a fully loaded car and motorboats and killing one civilian, according to local residents. In late September, airstrikes on a cargo truck parking area in Indaw Township, near Sagaing Region’s border with Kachin State, and a village sheltering war-displaced civilians in Kawlin Township killed at least eight people and injured more than a dozen. On Monday, another airstrike targeted civilians engaged in small-scale gold mining at the Thaphanseik Dam in Kyunhla Township, killing six people and injuring more than 30.

Aerial assault by Myanmar’s military kills mother, three daughters in Sagaing Region

The attack on a village in Depayin Township comes amid increased targeting of civilians in Sagaing’s resistance strongholds

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