Myanmar junta airstrikes continue in Shan State, killing six civilians in four days

The Myanmar air force bombed Lashio, northern Shan State on Tuesday, killing a civilian and damaging hotels and houses in the last of a four-day series of deadly airstrikes in the state, local sources said. Residents of Lashio—northern Shan State’s most populous city—said warplanes conducted two rounds of airstrikes in the predawn hours, the first at around 1:30am and the second at 4am. “Two hotels in Ward 2 were hit by the first round airstrikes. The second round damaged several houses,” a Lashio resident said. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the ethnic armed organisation that has held control of the town since August 3, has not issued a statement providing casualty figures at the time of reporting. However, local media outlets claimed that one woman was killed and at least a dozen other civilians were injured in the bombing raids. The Myanmar air force has bombed Lashio four times since the MNDAA—also commonly known as the Kokang Army—took over the town last month, capturing the military’s Northeastern Regional Military Command headquarters. Photos from Lashio, northern Shan State show damage from airstrikes conducted by the Myanmar air force since the anti-junta group MNDAA took over the town last month (Lashio Reconstruction Facebook Page) The junta has also conducted airstrikes in other cities captured or menaced by anti-junta armed groups in northern Shan State, including Kutkai, Hseni (Hsenwi), Nawnghkio, and Namkham. The Tuesday airstrikes on Lashio followed similar aerial attacks on the nearby town of Hsipaw and the town of Pekhon, southern Shan State over the course of three days. Clashes have been ongoing in Hsipaw Township since early August amid attempts by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA)—another ethnic armed group and sometime ally of the MNDAA—to capture the junta’s Light Infantry Battalion 23 base just north of Hsipaw. The latest air raids over Hsipaw Township—which borders Lashio Township to the southwest—killed two elderly women and two teenage boys on Monday at around 3pm, when the military’s Y-12 aircraft dropped five bombs on Nar Loi village some 25 miles northwest of Hsipaw. At least three people including a journalist were also injured in the Hsipaw Township airstrikes, according to spokespersons for the TNLA. Two days before, an airstrike on southern Shan State’s Pekhon Township, which shares a border with Karenni State, also killed a woman in her 30s and injured nine civilians including five children, according to a local human rights advocacy group. The air force struck La Tein village some ten miles west of Pekhon on Saturday at around 4pm, according to the Karenni Human Rights Group (KHRG). “Five children were injured by the airstrike. One of them is in critical condition,” a KHRG representative said. The airstrikes near Pekhon occurred amid ongoing clashes between resistance and junta forces on Pekhon Township's northwestern border with Pinlaung Township, southern Shan State.

Myanmar junta airstrikes continue in Shan State, killing six civilians in four days

The regime's aerial attacks on Shan State have intensified since it lost the Myanmar army’s Northeastern Regional Military Command headquarters to anti-junta forces in August

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