Airstrikes carried out by Myanmar’s military damaged multiple buildings, including a monastery, in Sagaing Region’s Wetlet Township on Thursday, according to resistance sources.
The attacks, which took place within a 5km radius of the township’s administrative centre, began at around 9:30am, the sources said.
“They passed over the town three times and dropped three large bombs. They also fired randomly at the edges of the town with machine guns,” said a spokesperson for the Wetlet Township People’s Defence Team.
He added that the airstrikes began just 20 minutes after resistance forces used drones to attack Wetlet’s fire station. A similar attack targeting the town’s central police station was carried out the previous day.
Three villages reported damage from the airstrikes: Khaw Taw, which is 5km south of Wetlet; Myin Taw, which is 2km to the east; and Tha Khut Taw, which is 4km to the north.
In Tha Khut Taw, a bomb landed inside the compound of the village monastery. No one was killed by any of the explosions, but at least one person and several farm animals were injured.
The leader of a local defence team told Myanmar Now that the villages were mostly empty when the airstrikes began because residents had already fled due to heavy shelling by regime forces in the area.
The drone attack on the fire station reportedly caused some damage to the building, but no casualties. Several police officers are believed to have been killed or injured in the attack that was carried out on Wednesday.
According to locals, clashes have been breaking out recently in eastern Wetlet Township between resistance forces and a junta column that has been moving north along the Ayeyarwady River from Sagaing Township.
On Tuesday, at least 10 civilians, including a monk, were killed by junta airstrikes on a village in Sagaing’s Pale Township.
Myanmar’s military continues to carry out indiscriminate airstrikes in many parts of the country, despite international condemnation of its killing of more than 160 people, including dozens of children, in a single attack on the village of Pa Zi Gyi in Sagaing’s Kanbalu Township on April 11.
