Junta drone attacks, artillery, bombs kill 10 civilians in central Myanmar

Drone strikes, aerial attacks, and shelling by regime troops and allied militias have resulted in at least ten civilian deaths in Sagaing and Mandalay regions since mid-July, local and resistance sources said. According to armed resistance members, junta forces launched a drone strike that killed two civilians last Thursday in the village of Tha Yet Khaung some 15 miles south of Kanbalu. The drone attack killed a woman, 65, and her son, 45, as well as severely injuring another civilian woman, 43, a spokesperson for the People’s Defence Organisation (PDO) of the Htan Kone area said. According to the spokesperson, who uses the nom de guerre Moe Kyoe Mone Taing, a column of around 130 soldiers and militia members, including troops from the Myanmar army’s Tank Battalion 6006, entered the village after the strike. “Before reaching the target village, they flew in drones from West Nyaung Zin village, which is a Pyu Saw Htee village,” Moe Kyoe Mone Taing said, referring to the junta-trained militias that control many of Sagaing Region’s villages. “After the drone strike, the ground forces advanced. advanced with their ground forces. They first sent the drones to where they planned to go,” he added. “When they fired one of the drones, civilians scattered in a panic." Resistance forces also claimed the junta forces that attacked Tha Yet Khaung village set fire to civilian houses before leaving the village on Sunday morning, but the extent of the damage is still unknown. Junta troops stationed at the Zee Kone sugar refinery also fired on Tha Pyay Thar Gyi village, some 18 miles south of Kanbalu, using heavy artillery. The shelling reportedly killed a man, 55, and injured two others before the column withdrew. The junta column was reportedly still moving through the area as of Sunday morning. Junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee militia members reportedly initiated the offensive operations south of Kanbalu following a resistance attack last week on a combined army and militia base camp near a bridge in Kyee Kone village on the Htan Kone-Kanbalu road. The resistance attack resulted in casualties on the junta side, and the capture of 16 carbines from the base. Myanmar Now has not been able to confirm the number of casualties. In neighbouring Mandalay Region’s Thabeikkyin Township, some 40 miles southeast of Kanbalu on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River, junta airstrikes have killed at least seven people in Chaung Gyi village in the last ten days, according to sources on the ground. Starting on July 18 and lasting at least one full week, the junta’s airstrikes using Y-12 transport aircraft, helicopters, and jets have damaged 48 buildings including civilian homes, a monastery, and a school, locals said. Thabeikkyin Township has become a hotbed of fighting in recent weeks as resistance forces in northern Mandalay Region advanced towards Mandalay, taking advantage of the military’s entanglement in clashes with anti-junta ethnic armed groups in the region’s Mogok Township and neighbouring areas of northern Shan State. Due to a telecommunications blackout in Thabeikkyin at the time of reporting, Myanmar Now is still in the process of investigating conditions in the area following the junta airstrikes. Myanmar’s military regime has sought to expand the territory controlled by Pyu Saw Htee militias in Sagaing Region, establishing more militia camps in Kanbalu and neighbouring townships. Led by Ven. Warthawa, a pro-junta Buddhist monk, the militias have established strongholds in some 40 villages in Kanbalu Township, although much of its territory remains under resistance control. According to resistance forces, the army and pro-junta militias have resorted to drone attacks more frequently this year in southern Shan State, Karen State, and Sagaing Region, stepping up drone strikes in Kanbalu Township since June. The change came after junta chief Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing admitted significant losses resulting from attacks by anti-junta ethnic armed groups, especially the Brotherhood Alliance in northern Shan State, using Chinese-made farm drones. In the second week of July, a junta drone strike on a rural health clinic in Budalin Township, Sagaing Region, killed six people, including a healthcare worker taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement against the coup regime.

Junta drone attacks, artillery, bombs kill 10 civilians in central Myanmar

Regime forces and junta-trained militias have been using drones more frequently since last year after suffering losses from drone attacks by anti-junta ethnic armed groups in northern Shan State

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