Medical workers vow to continue helping patients after junta bombs hospital in Chin State

Even after a junta airstrike razed their hospital in Mindat Township, Chin State last week, the doctors and nurses on staff are determined to keep providing aid and care to patients in the area. The Wammathu (Vawmm’tu) Hospital, located some five miles northwest of Mindat and six miles west of the border with Magway Region, was destroyed in a series of junta bombing raids between April 25 and 28. Patients who survived the airstrikes have been relocated to safer areas, healthcare workers said. “We will keep on doing what we are doing,” a doctor from the hospital resolved after surviving the airstrike. “We will need to find a new, safer place. It will be difficult for us to settle down in one location. We will have to move from place to place,” the doctor added. A representative of the Mindat People’s Administrative Team (PAT)—which operates under the publicly mandated, anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG)—told Myanmar Now on Monday that financial limitations have prevented them from reopening the hospital. “We’ve lost nearly everything. It will cost a lot to reopen the hospital in another safe location. We need to rebuild an operating room and this time we will build accommodations for the patients in different locations to prevent being targeted from junta air strikes,” he said. He estimated that the cost of rebuilding shelters and making the facility fit for medical procedures again would come to a total of at least 150 million kyat (US $72,000). Since August 2021, the Wammathu Hospital has been run by medical staff participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a campaign of nonviolent resistance to the military regime that seized power in a coup six months earlier. Since then, it has served as a haven for patients from the neighbouring Sagaing and Magway regions, as well as Mindat, Kanpetlet and Matupi townships in Chin State. The hospital, led by a team of 12 medical professionals, was equipped to perform most major surgical operations except for brain surgery. Located in territory controlled by Chin anti-junta armed organisations, which made it inaccessible for attacking junta ground troops, it instead became a target for airstrikes. At the time of the bombing, at least 10 patients and their guests were inside the main hospital building. Five of the patients were resistance members injured in ongoing clashes in Kanpetlet Township, located to the south of Mindat Township in Chin State. The medical team of two doctors and six nurses or nursing aides were also present on the hospital compound. State of conflict in Chin State Intense battles have broken out in Kyindwe, Kanpetlet Township—around 38 miles south of Wammathu—as anti-regime forces have carried out assaults in attempts to take control of the area since last December. The military sent reinforcements by helicopter and conducted airstrikes to fend off the anti-junta fighters, some of whom went to Wammathu Hospital for treatment after sustaining injuries in combat. “They did it deliberately, in my view, to stop aid to the resistance forces away from the frontline,” a Mindat PAT official said, referring to the hospital bombing. Posts on pro-junta social media channels also called for the air force to bomb hospitals after junta ground troops suffered heavy losses in the Kanpetlet Township clashes. Even after details about the hospital’s location leaked to social media, the Wammathu Hospital staff believed that the hospital was protected by natural barriers such as forests and mountains and were not expecting such a devastating attack. The medical workers had also set up bomb shelters where they believed they and the patients would be able to take cover in the event of an airstrike. “The power of the bombs caught us off guard. The junta’s artillery shells fired from the ground had never landed direct hits on the hospital. That evening, we were also overwhelmed from a full schedule of surgical operations,” a Wammathu doctor said. Advance warnings about the airstrikes also failed to reach the medical workers at Wammathu Hospital due to internet and communications breakdowns. “We received notice that a warplane had flown over Pauk,” the doctor said, referring to a town in Magway Region some 20 miles east of Wammathu. “By then we had less than three minutes to take cover.” Hospital in La Ei village, Pekhon Township, northern Shan State hit by airstrikes in March (Photo: Karenni Human Rights Group) Strikes on civilian targets throughout Myanmar Hospitals, schools and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in resistance strongholds have become targets for constant attacks by junta warplanes. The NUG estimates that nearly 350 medical care facilities have been damaged by junta airstrikes since the 2021 coup. At least 104 healthcare workers have been killed and 131 have sustained injuries in junta attacks, according to the NUG. In Karenni (Kayah) State, airstrikes have become a commonplace tactic to support junta ground troops suffering heavy losses. On March 22, a junta warplane bombed a hospital in La Ei village in southern Shan State’s Pekhon Township, killing two people and injuring three. Pekhon Township—located on the border between Shan and Karenni states—has mostly fallen under the control of Karenni resistance forces following the launch of an anti-regime offensive by the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force and its allies last November. Protection against junta airstrikes and shelling has become a major concern for medical care facilities in Demoso Township, Karenni State according to a junior medical officer working there. “Our top priority is to build secure bomb shelters near our clinic. We also try to build the shelters separately to minimise attention, and we’re careful to check the cars coming in and out of our clinic,” she said. Despite these hardships, healthcare facilities have found various ways to keep their vital services available. Some clinics provide services on a part-time basis with irregular opening and closing times for flexibility, while others offer mobile clinic services to reach people who need care in remote places. “When we can, we will try to provide separate medical services for civilians and resistance fighters,” said Ko Benya, a spokesperson for the Karenni Human Rights Group. “But it could be difficult since our supplies and human resources are already insufficient.”

Medical workers vow to continue helping patients after junta bombs hospital in Chin State

Doctors and nurses participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in Mindat Township say they will persist in their mission to deliver badly needed health services to civilians and anti-junta fighters

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