Airstrikes kill 18 in Sagaing Region during football broadcast; 11 more in northern Shan State

Junta aerial bombing killed dozens in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township and northern Shan State’s Mongmit Township in a series of airstrikes over the weekend, locals and resistance sources said. 18 people were killed on Friday evening at a crowded tea shop in a Depayin Township village where residents had gathered to watch a football match, according to local residents, administrators, and anti-junta fighters. The air raid occurred at around 8pm, striking the tea shop on the north side of Ma Ya Kan village around seven miles southeast of Depayin. The bombs fell just outside the shop, according to a member of the local People’s Defence Organisation (PDO), causing explosions powerful enough to obliterate nearby houses and kill people instantaneously. “In our area, this is the rice harvesting season. By 5 or 6pm, people finish work. When they’re ready to stop for the day, they take a shower and go to the tea shop,” the PDO member explained. “It was crowded. Houses in the surrounding area were totally destroyed. The force of the bombs they dropped was truly terrifying,” he added. “It was as if the houses had never been built.” The resistance member described a scene of overwhelming carnage. “People’s bodies were torn to pieces,” he said. “You couldn’t distinguish between the deceased men and women. You couldn’t tell their ages.” The attack occurred as a women’s football match between Myanmar and the Philippines was airing on national television as part of the biennial Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Thailand. The tea shop was more crowded than usual due to the number of customers who had gathered there to watch the match, a villager said. “It was at a tea shop, so the casualties were high,” said a member of the Depayin Township Brothers Organisation. “They said people were watching the Myanmar women’s match just moments before the airstrike. The bombs were probably incendiary, and where they struck, everything was obliterated. The bodies were also in pieces.” Women and two children under the age of five were among the 18 who died instantly in the airstrike. There were also reportedly dozens of injuries, with some villagers in critical condition, according to a statement the Depayin Township People’s Administration Organisation released on Saturday. “Adults and children were watching television at the tea shop, watching the football match. It was 8pm. About 30 people were seriously injured,” a local man said. “Three members of the same family in one house—a father, mother, and son—were all killed.” Another resident alleged that the military had targeted the tea shop deliberately at the time of the match. “There were aircraft circling all day in Depayin Township yesterday,” he said. “Fighter jets came at midday, then one in the evening, then one at night.” The precise number of casualties is unconfirmed, but according to local sources, the slain and injured are known to have included residents of neighbouring villages as well as Ma Ya Kan, a village of some 500 households that has already been targeted by junta attacks at least twice since the 2021 coup. Around ten houses were significantly damaged or destroyed, the Depayin PDO officer said. The junta has not issued any statements as of Saturday morning regarding the Ma Ya Kan village airstrike. Another aerial attack by fighter jet and gyrocopter occurred the same day in western Depayin Township, according to another Depayin Township Brothers Organisation member, who said there were numerous casualties but that the death toll was unconfirmed. CAPTION: Damage caused by the airstrike on December 5 (Photo: Depayin Township PAO) Attacks targeting Mongmit Township The military also carried out aerial assaults on Mongmit Township, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than a dozen following the withdrawal of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) from the area. Nine men and two women were killed in the village of Myit Son, on the south bank of the Shweli (Ruili) River some 16 miles north of Mongmit, in a series of junta airstrikes over the weekend. “Bombs hit a school, a clinic, and fuelling station as well as a site where displaced people were taking refuge on Saturday,” a man from Mongmit Township said. “At least 11 people were killed. There were five displaced people among them, including a pregnant woman and her husband.” He added that 11 more people sustained injuries in the Saturday attack on Myit Son. Junta warplanes returned to the same village and carried out another airstrike on Sunday, damaging a car repair shop, other businesses, and resistance outposts. Some local people sustained injuries in the attack, according to a resident. The TNLA—an ethnic armed group that participated in a major offensive against the Myanmar military starting in late 2023—captured Mongmit Township last year, holding the territory for more than a year before withdrawing its forces in October in accordance with a Chinese-brokered ceasefire. Since its forces entered the town of Mongmit at the beginning of this month, the Myanmar military has been carrying out airstrikes targeting resistance forces in the surrounding rural areas of the township. Despite the TNLA’s assent to the ceasefire and subsequent withdrawal, resistance forces have vowed to continue fighting against the military in Mongmit and nearby Mogok Township, Mandalay Region. Clashes have been ongoing in both townships since late November.

Airstrikes kill 18 in Sagaing Region during football broadcast; 11 more in northern Shan State

Casualties were unusually high from the Sagaing Region attack, which hit a tea shop where villagers had gathered to watch Myanmar’s national team play in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games

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