Myanmar junta airstrike kills eight in Sagaing’s Taze Township

An airstrike carried out by Myanmar’s military killed at least eight people at a commercial site in Sagaing Region’s Taze Township on Friday morning, according to local sources. The attack occurred at around 11:30am and targeted the area near a busy gas station in Kanhtuma, a village about 10 miles west of the town of Taze. “Most of the victims were construction workers, as the bombs fell near a building site. One person from the gas station was also among the dead,” a member of the Taze Township People’s Security Organisation told Myanmar Now. The dead included six men and two women, and 12 others were injured, some critically, he added. Among those killed were construction foreman Pho Tun, 43, and four men in their 20s working under his supervision. The others—a man and two women—were also in their 20s. According to another local source, some of the victims could only be identified by their body parts. “At first, we thought only five had died. But after finding the body parts, we confirmed that there were three more,” the source said, adding that three of the injured were also in life-threatening condition. Residents of Kanhtuma said they didn’t know why their densely populated village came under attack. One local source stated, “There was no ongoing battle; they just bombed a busy place.” Kanhtuma had previously seen fighting in February 2022 and February 2024, on both occasions involving attacks by local resistance forces on the village’s heavily fortified police station. In the second incident, anti-regime forces captured the police station but then set it on fire, fearing that the regime would send air support and reinforcements to take it back. Three resistance fighters and nine police officers were killed in the fighting, and junta airstrikes left many locals injured. In Patha, a village about 11 miles west of Kanhtuma, two civilians were killed by the aerial assaults.

Myanmar junta airstrike kills eight in Sagaing’s Taze Township

Most of the victims were working at a building site when it was hit late Friday morning

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