Junta paramotor strikes kill three civilians in Bago

Five junta paramotors attacked villages in Bago Region’s Okpho Township on Sunday, killing three civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, local resistance forces said.The bombings killed Chit Kaung and Tin Myoe Min, both in their 30s, along with 15-year-old Khant Kyaw Thu, according to Okpho resistance member Aung Zeyar. "Local civilians were going about their normal activities in the evening, then when the paramotors came, they started scrambling for cover,” he said. “That's when they were hit.” Sources said the paramotor strikes destroyed several homes and a monastery in the area, which had already been shelled with heavy artillery in earlier attacks. On August 28, a drone strike on Okpho Township killed a mother and child, part of the junta’s near-daily air and drone attacks on resistance areas that have left numerous civilians dead.It’s not the junta’s first time deploying paramotor attacks. These weaponised motorised paragliders have struck multiple regions since last year, including Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway, and Rakhine State. Experts say the military has increasingly turned to paramotors because they are cheap, easy to maneuver at low altitudes, and allow troops to bypass terrain that is difficult for ground forces to reach. The lightweight aircraft are often used to strike resistance strongholds and intimidate civilian populations in contested areas.The junta aerial attacks come in the wake of new assaults by resistance forces within Okpho Township, with anti-junta groups claiming they have recently killed pro-junta militia troops and suspected informants between August and September. On September 6, resistance forces shot and killed Htun Thein, the junta-appointed administrator of Kanthaya village in Okpho Township, according to a statement. The statement accused him of overseeing pro-junta militias, recruiting soldiers for the junta, and extorting money from residents. "In recent days, we've been continuously clearing out informants and militiamen in Okpho Township," Aung Zeyar said. In August, resistance fighters said they killed two pro-junta militia members in Bago Region. On September 5, another resistance group reported assassinating a man they accused of being a junta informant. Myanmar Now could not independently confirm whether those killed by resistance forces were in fact junta informants or members of the pro-junta militia.“Even with some limitations, their cost-effectiveness and flexibility may become a key element in the military’s aerial operations, particularly as resistance groups still have yet to shoot a single paramotor down,” said Su Mon, Senior Analyst for Asia-Pacific with ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) in a press release from February.“I suspect paramotor attacks are likely to expand across the country in the coming months given resistance groups’ inability to counter them.”

Junta paramotor strikes kill three civilians in Bago

The attack destroyed homes and a monastery in Okpho Township, marking the latest in a string of low-flying aerial assaults across Myanmar

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