Four children among civilians killed by junta airstrikes in Mrauk-U Township

Five villagers were killed and around ten were injured Thursday morning in a village in Mrauk-U Township, Rakhine State, as the Myanmar regime’s air force conducted an airstrike amid escalating clashes with the Arakan Army (AA). At around 8am, a junta fighter plane dropped three bombs on Upper Lay Hnyin Taung village, located on the west bank of the Lemro River some 30 miles northeast of Mrauk-U, according to a woman from the village in her 40s. “Five people were killed altogether. Three children in one family were killed, and one displaced girl walking out on the street,” said the woman, who is a neighbor to some of the victims. The air raid also started fires that burned three houses to the ground and caused severe injuries to other villages including a two-year-old. Some of the victims lost limbs, the woman added. Two of the victims killed in the air raid were three years old, and two others were aged eight and 10, according to local sources. A 30-year-old woman was also killed by the bombs, the sources said. “There was damage to my house too, including a shrine to Buddha. My children were sitting outside on the ground. If they had been in the house they might have been killed too,” the woman living in Upper Lay Hnyin Taung added. “We were lucky; we might have been buried in the same grave.” Most of the village’s inhabitants have fled. The AA—Rakhine State’s most powerful ethnic armed organisation, which renewed hostilities with junta forces in November—has advanced further in its takeover of Mrauk-U Township, prompting the Myanmar military to respond with indiscriminate airstrikes in civilian areas that routinely cause catastrophic destruction and casualties. On March 18, a junta airstrike in Daing Thar village in Minbya Township killed 22 mostly Rohingya people, injuring 30 others. Since November 13, 2023, at least 110 civilians have been killed and at least 350 injured by junta bombing, shelling, or other attacks in Rakhine State. Tens of thousands more have been displaced. Since fighting between the AA and junta forces resumed in November, the Rakhine ethnic armed organisation has taken full control of seven townships in Rakhine State as well as Paletwa Township, Chin State from the Myanmar military. A resident of Mrauk-U Township commented that he feels the Myanmar military is committing war crimes because they are losing and desperate. “They can’t defeat the AA, so they’re trying to take revenge on civilians. They are attacking us intentionally,” he said.

Four children among civilians killed by junta airstrikes in Mrauk-U Township

Bombing raids have resulted in dozens of casualties over the past month in rural villages outside Mrauk-U as the junta attempts to beat back relentless assaults by the Arakan Army

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