Junta airstrike kills at least 25 at truck stop in Magway

Junta aircraft bombed a truckstop rest area in Magway Region’s Mindon Township on Sunday morning, killing at least 25 people and injuring many others, according to resistance forces. Sources say that at around 11am, two fighter jets carried out at least eight bombing and strafing runs near Pyaung village at the foot of the Rakhine Yoma, about eight miles west of Mindon. Resistance forces told Myanmar Now that the dead included 23 men and two women, most of them truck drivers and local residents.“There were eight strikes, with twin 300-pound bombs dropped and aircraft machine guns used for strafing,” Myat, an information officer for Thayet District Battalion 4 of the People’s Defense Force (PDF) told Myanmar Now. Local civilians and resistance forces said that the high death toll was due to the targeting of a rest stop used for the transit of commercial goods. “That’s why the casualties are so high. They were all civilians.” Among the approximately 20 injured, resistance forces said that about 10 sustained severe injuries, including the loss of limbs. The attack comes just days after an airstrike on a busy Rakhine State market that killed 18 people, including children. Mindon Township lies along the western stretch of the Pathein–Monywa Road and borders Taungup and Ann townships in Rakhine State, both of which are under the control of the Arakan Army (AA), a powerful ethnic armed group based in the state. A burnt-out truck sits amid charred consumer goods after a junta airstrike struck a truck terminal in Mindon Township, Magway Region, on March 1. (Photo: Supplied) “Since this is a place where goods are transported, collected, and transferred, some locals go there to work as loaders. These places are crowded, especially since it was a Sunday,” said Myat. Pyaung village, at the foot of the Yoma , is an area dominated and controlled by resistance forces. Starting from the third week of January this year, the junta launched a week-long column offensive, burning and destroying several nearby villages.Myat said the junta conducted drone reconnaissance in the days leading up to the strike. Other resistance forces confirmed the attack, saying it inflicted heavy financial losses in addition to civilian casualties.“While these goods might not be as expensive in the towns, prices are very high in areas with difficult transportation where goods are moved in stages,” Hein, the head of the Thayet District People’s Defense Organisation (PDO) told Myanmar Now. “The losses amount to nearly 2 billion kyat (US $500,000),” he said. “A single truck alone costs more than 100 million kyat,” said Hein, head of the Thayet District People’s Defense Organization.Resistance forces asserted that the attack targeted a civilian gathering point despite there being no active ground fighting. Due to the threat of further airstrikes, residents from Pyaung village and about four nearby villages have fled to safety and are now displaced.The junta has been intensifying its aerial attacks even in the post-election period. During February, there were at least five incidents of mass civilian deaths due to junta airstrikes across Sagaing, Magway, and Rakhine State. “In our experience, even when military camps are being seized, they don’t provide air support like this,” Hnein added. “This felt more like a logic of intense annihilation than hitting a military target. Two jet fighters flew up together—one dropping bombs while the other fired rockets—striking civilian targets severely.”

Junta airstrike kills at least 25 at truck stop in Magway

Fighter jets carried out eight bombing and strafing runs near Mindon Township, resistance forces say, as civilians at a commercial transit hub bore the brunt of the attack

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