More Myanmar junta airstrikes hit northern Shan State on anniversary of Operation 1027

Local sources said the Myanmar air force’s bombs struck five towns in northern Shan State between Friday and Sunday, the first anniversary of the large-scale Operation 1027 offensive launched by anti-junta ethnic armed groups last year. Over the course of three days, the attacks killed at least two men and injured eleven other civilians in the townships of Hseni (Hsenwi), Namkham, Nawnghkio, Laukkai, and Lashio, according to anti-junta fighters operating in the region. The towns that came under attack are all located in territory under anti-junta forces’ control. A local media outlet reported that junta warplanes dropped bombs at least three times in the Shaung Feng Cheng area of Laukkai in the Kokang region on the China-Myanmar border on Sunday at around 7:35am. Laukkai has been under the control of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), colloquially called the Kokang army, since January. The MNDAA, along with its allies, was one of the members of the Brotherhood Alliance that has seized large swaths of northern Shan State from the Myanmar military in the Operation 1027 offensive, which began in October of last year, halted in January due to a ceasefire, and resumed in late June. Several buildings in Laukkai including a hotel were hit by the junta airstrikes, local sources said, and four people sustained injuries. Later that day, local sources said the air force went on to bomb three more towns, including Hsenwi, a small town some 30 miles northeast of the MNDAA-controlled city of Lashio. Forces of both the MNDAA and its ally, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) are currently occupying Hseni. “The explosions were loud. We heard three blasts last night,” a man from Hseni said. “Today, a fighter jet was also spotted in Kutkai, hovering over the town,” he said, referring to a town 16 miles to the north. A church and several houses were severely damaged in the junta attack on Hseni, according to the MNDAA, but no civilian casualties were reported. The TNLA, which controls the town of Namkham—about 100 miles north of Lashio on the Chinese border—claimed junta warplanes conducted three rounds of airstrikes in the town on Sunday morning, but did not give further details. “This time, the town suffered minimal damage, as bombs landed on open ground on the outskirts of town,” a man from Namkham said. However, on the same day, the local news outlet Shwe Phee Myay reported that a man died from injuries to the head after a series of airstrikes in Tha Pyay village, Nawnghkio Township, another TNLA-controlled area. Junta airstrikes also hit Lashio and Hseni on Friday, according to MNDAA-connected sources. One man was killed and another injured in the regime’s Friday airstrikes on Lashio, which targeted two locations, according to the MNDAA-linked sources: Ward 12 and a battery factory in Mae Han village less than five miles south of the city centre. A rice liquor distillery in Mae Han had also been damaged by junta airstrikes last Wednesday. The airstrikes in Hseni Township, which targeted the village of Kaung Haw village about five miles south of the township’s urban centre, injured six villagers, according to the TNLA information team. Nyan Lin Thit Analytica, an independent research organisation monitoring civilian casualties, estimates that at least 261 civilians were killed and 294 injured by junta aerial assaults in northern Shan State between October 2023 and August 2024. Recently, Chinese authorities have halted trade through the towns on China’s borders with Kachin and northern Shan states, a lucrative source of revenue for the ethnic armed organisations controlling those crossings, in an effort to pressure those groups to cease fighting against the Myanmar military.

More Myanmar junta airstrikes hit northern Shan State on anniversary of Operation 1027

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