Airstrikes by Myanmar’s military kill eight civilians near Sagaing-Kachin border

At least eight people were killed and more than a dozen others injured in two days of airstrikes targeting residential areas and places crowded with civilians near Sagaing Region’s border with Kachin State, according to local resistance authorities. On September 24, three men were killed and at least six other people were injured when two bombs struck a village in Sagaing’s Kawlin Township, resistance administrators said. The bombs hit a site in Kokekokone, a village about 20 miles east of the town of Kawlin, where civilians displaced by fighting were sheltering, according to a statement released by the anti-regime Kawlin Township People’s Administrative Organisation. Photographs released by resistance forces showed at least two homes destroyed, with large craters in the compounds around the houses and trees broken or damaged. Kawlin District People’s Defence Force Battalion No. 1, which operates under the National Unity Government (NUG), condemned the strike, saying there had been no military activity in the village and that civilians were specifically targeted. Kokekokone was previously hit by an airstrike in October 2024, when four civilians were killed, according to local sources. Damage from the airstrike on Kokekokone on September 24 (Photo: Kawlin District PDF Battalion No. 1) The September 24 attack came a day after another airstrike in nearby Indaw Township killed five people and injured eight others, according to the Indaw Township People’s Defence Organisation. About 40 bombs were dropped in two waves, in the morning and evening, on a parking area used by cargo trucks, the group said. The area was crowded with merchants, drivers, and civilians displaced by fighting, while cargo convoys had been stranded because of road subsidence. The five people killed were men between 30 and 40 years old, while two women and six men between 20 and 50 suffered serious injuries, the resistance group said. Local residents said there had been no ground fighting or military activity involving resistance forces at the locations targeted. “There were no military columns operating near here. It was purely an airstrike targeting crowded places filled with civilian war evacuees,” a local resistance fighter told Myanmar Now. Efforts to reach 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 airstrikes went unanswered. Resistance forces captured the town of Kawlin in late 2023 but lost control three months later after the military launched a major offensive to retake it. Much of the surrounding countryside remains under resistance control. Kawlin Township is part of the “three Ks” area of Sagaing Region, which also includes Katha and Kanbalu townships. The area is strategically important for transportation and has been a base of operations for forces affiliated with the NUG and the Kachin Independence Army. The military launched major offensives earlier this year to retake towns in the area that had fallen to resistance forces, including Banmauk, Indaw, and Maw Lu. The military later said it had regained control of the Shwebo-Myitkyina road. The military has used airstrikes extensively in its effort to reassert control over parts of the country that it has lost since seizing power in February 2021. In its latest annual report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar noted that the military has increased its use of air power, with civilians bearing the brunt of attacks. The NUG said airstrikes in August killed 193 civilians and injured more than 260 others nationwide, with Sagaing Region recording the highest number of casualties.

Airstrikes by Myanmar’s military kill eight civilians near Sagaing-Kachin border

The attacks, carried out over two consecutive days, targeted civilians, including displaced persons, resistance sources said

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