Airstrikes kill dozens in Sagaing Region, Rakhine State

More than two dozen civilians, including children, were killed and many were injured by junta bombing raids in Rakhine State and Myinmu Township, Sagaing Region on Monday and Tuesday, local and resistance sources said. A three-year-old girl was among the 10 people killed when two powered paramotors—light, propelled aircraft with parachute wings, each piloted by one or two people—carried out an attack in Myinmu Township on Monday night, according to members of the township’s People’s Defence Organisation (PDO). Having taken off from the regime's Northwestern Regional Military Command headquarters in Monywa, Sagaing Region, the paramotors flew over Shwe Kyaung Kan village around 20 miles northeast of Myinmu at around 7pm, dropping three bombs at the village’s south and north ends. The greatest number of casualties occurred at a cooking oil mill struck by one of the bombs on the north side of the village, according to a Myinmu Township PDO spokesperson. “When they flew in above Shwe Kyaung Kan, people went to the cooking oil mill... thinking they wouldn’t bomb it,” the spokesperson said. “Nine people were killed immediately and another passed away during the night.” According to the spokesperson, the PDO confirmed that the deceased included a three-year-old child, four people in their 30s, and five people between 45 and 65. There were also five people who incurred injuries in the bombing, including two girls aged seven and four. “I see this as the result of weak programmes to raise people’s awareness and insufficient discussion about the risks from aerial attacks in the township, as well as ordinary people’s negligence,” a resident of Myinmu Township told Myanmar Now. The attack appears to have been entirely unprovoked. There has been no recent fighting on the ground near Shwe Kyaung Kan, a village of around 300 households near the border between Myinmu and Ayadaw townships where most residents make their living by farming. Damage caused by the February 23 paramotor attack on Shwe Kyaung Kan village (Photo: Supplied) Airstrikes hit Ponnagyun marketplace Junta aircraft bombed a marketplace in the village of Yoe Ngu in Rakhine State’s Ponnagyun Township on Tuesday at around 2pm, causing more than a dozen fatalities and injuries, according to locals. Photographs taken soon after the attack showed at least nine bodies laid out on the ground, of which most appeared to be the bodies of women or children. “Two bombs were dropped,” a local source said on Tuesday. “The death toll may still rise. We don’t know the exact details yet.” In the hours after the attack, other locals said buildings in and near the market area caught fire during the attack, with people trapped inside. Aftermath of the junta airstrike on the Yoe Ngu village market in Ponnagyun Township, Rakhine State (Photo: Supplied) Footage from the scene showed market stalls engulfed in flames, with goods strewn about nearby, as local people worked to remove people and bodies from the conflagration. In one video, a voice could be heard saying the fire in a nearby building had grown so intense that further rescue attempts would be impossible. Since the initial count, the confirmed number of fatalities has nearly doubled. “So far, the death toll has risen to 17,” said Wai Hun Aung, a local volunteer and writer, on Tuesday evening. “And more than 20 people have been injured, with some in critical condition.” “Many of those killed in the attack were children, but we don’t know the exact number yet,” he added. The Arakan Army (AA)—the ethnic armed organisation controlling Ponnagyun and most of the state’s 17 townships—issued a statement on Tuesday evening, confirming that at least 17 deaths had been counted and at least 14 had sustained injuries in the aerial assault on the Yoe Ngu market. A large village on the Yangon-Sittwe highway, Yoe Ngu has become more crowded in the last two years due to an influx of people displaced by fighting, mostly from elsewhere in the state. The Myanmar military junta has escalated attacks by sea and air in recent weeks in other parts of Rakhine State including Kyaukphyu, one of the few townships where the AA has not assumed full control. As of February 20, the junta’s attacks had already caused the deaths of at least 15 civilians and injuries to 30 more. The Myanmar military’s airstrikes continued at the same level of intensity even as the country’s ruling junta held a closely managed election between December and January. The election, which the coup regime organised in part to reinforce its claims to legitimacy, was widely dismissed as a “sham” by opponents and the international community. In several separate incidents this month, bombing attacks caused a total of at least 18 civilian deaths in Sagaing and Magway regions. According to the research group Myanmar Defense and Security Institute (MDSI)—largely staffed by defectors from the Myanmar military who have since joined the anti-junta resistance or civil disobedience movement—airstrikes killed 127 civilians and injured 241 throughout Myanmar in January.

Airstrikes kill dozens in Sagaing Region, Rakhine State

More than two dozen people including children were killed in the aerial and paramotor strikes, which hit an edible oil refinery in Sagaing Region and a crowded marketplace in Rakhine State

Subscribe for full access

How the global fuel crisis is upending Myanmar’s rice supply chain

No way out: Junta airstrike leaves prisoners burned alive in AA camp

Killing their own: How Myanmar’s military targets those left behind

The costly resistance operation that saved hundreds of civilian hostages

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

Myanmar dictator names members of new ‘super council’

Myanmar junta leader sworn in as self-appointed president

Insein Prison authorities deny medical treatment to seriously ill Myanmar Now journalist

Myanmar clients sue Norway’s Telenor for giving data to junta