Children, IDPs among civilians killed by Myanmar junta’s New Year’s Eve airstrikes

Several civilians including a three-year-old and a five-year-old were killed yesterday as the military regime’s air force continued its bombing campaign across several states and regions despite the New Year’s Eve holiday. The three-year-old child died during an afternoon airstrike on an internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camp in Karenni (Kayah) State’s Loikaw Township. Junta warplanes carried out two airstrikes over the camp at around 4pm, instantly killing a 38-year-old woman. Later, the child and a 52-year-old woman died of their injuries at a hospital, according to Banyar Khun Aung, an official of Karenni State’s Interim Executive Council (IEC). Three other people were reportedly injured in the attack. One was wounded in the head by shrapnel, while the other two had minor injuries, according to the IEC official. Having lost control of territory on multiple fronts across Myanmar—including the Northeastern Regional Military Command (RMC) in Lashio, northern Shan State and the Western RMC headquarters in Ann, Rakhine State—the Myanmar military has escalated its aerial bombing in nearby areas. Tar Eh Soe, a spokesperson for the anti-junta armed group Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), said that throughout 2024 the junta air force has increasingly targeted IDP camps as well as villages and tracts where displaced civilians have been seeking shelter from violence. “If we think about it, we can suppose they are trying to make life harder for the people during the revolution to sow discord between them and the resistance fighters,” he remarked. The junta’s air raids have also continued elsewhere during the holidays. The military reportedly conducted another New Year’s Eve air raid elsewhere in the state—in western Demoso Township—at around twenty minutes to midnight. However, according to local sources the bombs struck an uninhabited hill and did not cause any casualties. Another airstrike targeted the headquarters of the ethnic armed organisation (EAO) Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLA) in Ban Mat village in southern Shan State’s Mawkmai Township at around 11am. According to Khun Rein Yan, a PNLA spokesperson, a junta fighter jet dropped four bombs on the headquarters’ compound despite the lack of any recent in the area, destroying a clinic that serves civilians. The number of casualties from the incident is unconfirmed. Five people were killed and seven injured in Mandalay Region’s Ngazun Township in another airstrike on the village of Thakyin that evening, which also killed eight head of cattle and damaged eight houses. “Last night for over an hour, around 8:20 to 9:40pm, civilians were targeted by the airstrikes,” a local man said on Wednesday. The village, made up of some 200 households, had not seen any fighting for months, according to the villager. However, he added, the junta’s air force has attacked nearby villages at least once a month since September. “Yesterday, without any fighting going on, they hit the village with airstrikes, killing four people in one house and a five-year-old child from a different family,” he told Myanmar Now. Bombing in Myanmar’s coastal Rakhine State also caused civilian fatalities on New Year’s Eve. Five civilians including a child were killed and at least ten were injured including a monk in Ponnagyun Township’s Yoe Ta Yoke village some 30 miles north of the state capital, Sittwe, according to a local source. A man from the village said the deaths and injuries resulted from four junta airstrikes on a high school and monastery. “Three were killed on the spot while another two out of the twelve injured people died on the way to a clinic,” he told Myanmar Now. The junta has carried out a continuous series of assaults on territories captured by the ethnic armed group Arakan Army, whose ground forces are now occupying 14 of the Rakhine State’s 17 townships. Junta airstrikes also killed one civilian and wounded six in Thandwe in the south of the state on December 23, then killed five and injured seven in the neighbouring Gwa Township four days later. On December 30, junta air raids targeted public celebrations and sports events marking Karen New Year in the Mutraw and Doo Tha Htu Districts—territories delineated by the Karen National Union (KNU) and controlled, respectively, by Brigade 5 and Brigade 1 of the group’s armed wing. The KNU—an ethnic political organisation and longstanding de facto authority in the area—released a statement describing the raids as a deliberately offensive act on an occasion observed by the Karen community. As reported in regime-controlled news outlets, junta chief Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing delivered a Karen New Year message on the same day vowing to focus on achieving peace and expressing openness to dialogue to resolve ongoing conflicts. In response, KNU spokesperson Padoh Saw Taw Nee said the military council could not be trusted after repeatedly reneging on promises and altering its narratives, remarking that a lasting peace with the junta was out of the question. Noting that the military regime has lost two regional military commands as it failed to stop the advance of anti-junta armed groups, Padoh Saw Taw Nee urged junta officers and high-ranking commanders whose support for the junta was flagging to defect to the side of “the public”. “If you keep digging a hole for yourselves, no one will be able to save you from the public punishment that awaits,” he warned.

Children, IDPs among civilians killed by Myanmar junta’s New Year’s Eve airstrikes

“We can suppose they are trying to make life harder for the people during the revolution to sow discord between them and the resistance fighters,” a Karenni resistance member said

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