Civilian casualties reported across Rakhine State as junta attacks with artillery in the south and airstrikes in the north

At least 10 civilians in southern Rakhine State’s Thandwe Township were killed by junta artillery fire on Tuesday, while the number of casualties is not yet confirmed following a military airstrike on a hospital in the state’s northern Kyauktaw Township carried out after midnight. The victims in Thandwe lived in the village of Linthi, and were ethnic Kaman Muslims, locals said. The community is around 17 miles north of the township’s administrative centre. Before Tuesday’s shelling, nearby fighting had been taking place between the junta’s forces and those belonging to the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed organisation with growing territorial claims and influence throughout the state. “Ten people were killed while several people who were injured lost their legs or hands and are at the hospital,” a resident from a village near Linthi told Myanmar Now, adding that the bodies of those slain had not been retrieved due to ongoing clashes in the area. Hundreds of people from Linthi, as well as from Thapyut Chiang and Pauktaw, located in the same village tract, had fled their homes at the time of reporting. The township of Thandwe is seen as strategic due to its shared border with central Myanmar’s Bago and Ayeyarwady regions; Ayeyarwady is considered a regime stronghold. Famous for its coastline which includes Ngapali Beach, lined with hotels owned by individuals with military ties, Thandwe is also the home of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing’s wife, Kyu Kyu Hla. Fighting between the military and the AA has intensified in southern townships including parts of Ann, Taungup, and Thandwe, which the AA is trying to claim after seizing control of eight other townships across Rakhine. These include Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, Myebon, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Rathedaung, Ramree, and Kyauktaw, as well as Paletwa in Chin State. The group is also trying to fully overtake the state’s northernmost townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung. Having largely abandoned its bases on the ground in these locations, the military bombed Kyauktaw from the air just after 12am on Wednesday, according to an AA statement, which did not provide a death toll. “The Myanmar junta’s airstrike entirely destroyed a hospital in Wei Gyi Dauk village, Kyauktaw Township, injuring more than 20 people, and killing some,” the ethnic armed organisation said. The victims included patients and civilian health workers, and at least five people’s injuries were described as critical. Photos released by the AA showed infants and new mothers with bandaged wounds sustained during the aerial attack, as well as the collapsed hospital building. On May 6, another junta airstrike on Kyauktaw killed at least five civilians, including a Buddhist monk, local sources reported. Myanmar Now was unable to speak to residents of Kyauktaw due to a junta-imposed telecommunications blackout. According to data collected by the AA’s Humanitarian and Development Coordination Office, some 179 people in Rakhine State were killed in junta attacks between November 2023 and March 2024, and 468 people injured.

Civilian casualties reported across Rakhine State as junta attacks with artillery in the south and airstrikes in the north

Military shelling kills at least 10 people in a Thandwe Township village, and an airstrike destroys a hospital in Kyauktaw

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