At least 15 killed in junta airstrike on Magway Region monastery

Content Warning: This report contains a graphic image of bodies that may be upsetting to some readers. We advise discretion in viewing this content. At least 15 people were killed and several more injured in a Myanmar military airstrike on a Buddhist monastery on Thursday morning north of Kyaukhtu town in Saw Township, locals said. The aerial attack targeted the site in Akyi Pan Pa Lun village, located within western Myanmar’s rugged Pondaung and Ponya mountain ranges around five miles north of Kyaukhtu, and claimed as a liberated area by the anti-junta People’s Defence Force (PDF). It is also situated on a major road connecting Pakokku, the largest city in Magway Region—where Saw Township is located—with Mindat in neighbouring Chin State. Hours after the assault, the death toll was reported as 10 by the township’s People’s Administration Team (PAT), which operates under the publicly mandated National Unity Government. The group said that some 30 people were wounded. By the time of reporting, the number of casualties had increased by at least 50 percent. The location of the May 9 airstrike (Myanmar Now) A meeting attended by both PDF members and civilians was being held in the monastery at the time of the airstrike, locals said, but there had been no recent fighting between the junta and resistance forces near Akyi Pan Pa Lun. “It was said that the jet fighter flew over the monastery twice and then fired [bombs],” a resident explained. “The firing occurred at a precise point, and we do not know the exact number of shots. The plane targeted the monastery directly, and at that time there were people in the monastery building, so the number of people who were hurt is high.” The monastery, which was built from wood and corrugated iron sheets, was completely destroyed in the attack, leaving behind ashes where the structure had once been, and charred bodies of victims burnt beyond recognition. Dr Kyi Soe Tun, a leader in the Saw PAT, said that for this reason, the identities of the deceased were not yet confirmed. Phone lines in the area were reportedly cut the morning before the attack. Rescue operations were difficult, as junta planes continued to fly overhead on Thursday night. Burnt bodies of victims of the May 9 military airstrike on the Akyi Pan Pa Lun village monastery (Yaw Alinn Tan) “The injured people were sent to separate places in the area for treatment, so the list of the injured has not been consolidated yet. Among them are both men and women,” Kyi Soe Tun told Myanmar Now, adding that the monastery’s abbot was also one of the wounded. He warned that further airstrikes could be carried out in neighbouring Chin State, which borders Saw. The township, along with Gangaw and Htilin, is part of the Yaw region, which since Myanmar’s 2021 coup has emerged as an anti-junta resistance stronghold. In late April, the military launched an aerial attack on the Wammathu hospital in Mindat Township, Chin State, killing four patients and a staff member, and destroying the facility. In November 2021, more than 2,000 people from villages along the road connecting Saw’s administrative centre with Kyaukhtu were forced to flee their homes when two military helicopters opened fire on PDF positions in the area following heavy clashes. Over the last three years, the military has launched repeated airstrikes targeting villages, schools, hospitals, and religious buildings nationwide. In one such incident last year, nearly 100 people, including 34 children, were killed in the aerial bombing of Pa Zi Gyi village in Sagaing Region’s Kanbalu Township; at the time of the attack, the Kanbalu PAT was holding an opening ceremony for its new office. Some 936 civilians have been killed and more than 870 others injured in junta airstrikes since the coup, according to a report released earlier this year by the Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica research group. Last month, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council called on UN member states to halt the export of jet fuel to Myanmar in order to halt the junta’s airstrikes on civilian populations.

At least 15 killed in junta airstrike on Magway Region monastery

The attack was carried out while civilians and members of the resistance attended a meeting in the monastery, located in liberated territory in Saw Township

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