Civilians killed in Myanmar air force attacks using planes, gliders

A series of junta airstrikes, some reportedly involving the use of motorised gliders, have killed eight civilians in areas of Sagaing Region and Rakhine State held by anti-junta forces since late last week, according to local sources. An airstrike on Myin Se village, Sagaing Township in the region of the same name killed two men and a woman on Friday at around 10pm, residents of the village said. “There had been no fighting in the area but the military’s warplanes targeted the village anyway,” said a woman from Sagaing Township in her 30s. “People lost their lives. Ten head of cattle were also killed.” Two villagers killed in junta airstrikes in Myin Se village, Sagaing Township in the region of the same name. The military warplanes fired rockets and dropped highly destructive heavy bombs, damaging 20 houses and a monastery in the village, which is located on the west bank of Ayeyarwady River opposite the town of Ngazun, Mandalay Region. Sources in the area also claimed the military regime also used motor-equipped gliders in the aerial assaults. Armed anti-junta groups often used the villages on the north bank of the Ayeyarwady as hideouts in the early stages of the armed resistance movement against the military coup, and the villages have since become frequent targets of shelling and raids by junta ground forces. During a series of raids by junta infantry in June 2023 on the north bank of the river, at least 15 resistance fighters and three civilians were killed in Kin Taw, a village adjacent to Myin Se. “There is no resistance outpost in Myin Se or the surrounding area currently,” a man living in Sagaing Township said. “All the resistance forces had to pull out because of the constant attacks by the military regime.” A cow killed in the junta airstrike in Sagaing Township The junta air force later attacked villages in Ponnagyun Township, Rakhine State on Sunday evening, killing at least four people. A military warplane bombed an area between Ah Lel Kyun and In Zone Pyin villages some three miles southwest of Ponnagyun where locals had gathered to access mobile network coverage, according to Arakan Princess, a local media outlet affiliated with the Arakan Army (AA).Ponnagyun under the control of the AA, a powerful ethnic armed organisation that has been fighting the Myanmar military for control of Rakhine State since November 2023 and has taken over 14 of the state’s 17 townships. The AA captured Ponnagyun in March 2024. Among the civilians killed in the junta attack were a 12-year-old boy, a woman working as a vendor from In Zone Pyin, and two women from Kyauktaw Township. The airstrikes came less than a week after the air force’s last attack on Ponnagyun, which killed five civilians including a nine-year-old child in Yoe Ta Yoke village some 18 miles north of Ponnagyun on New Year’s Eve. Another junta airstrike killed an elderly woman in Rakhine State’s Myebon Township on Friday. She died from her injuries after a warplane dropped bombs at a hospital and nearby high school. The military regime has been conducting retaliatory airstrikes on Rakhine State’s Ponnagyun, Myebon, Gwa, and Thandwe townships since losing its Western Regional Military Command headquarters in Ann to forces led by the AA on December 20.

Civilians killed in Myanmar air force attacks using planes, gliders

The air raids targeted Ponnagyun Township, which is currently controlled by the Arakan Army, the north bank of the Ayeyarwady in Sagaing Township despite a lack of active resistance forces in the area

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