Myanmar junta airstrikes kill four during Buddhist festival in Sagaing’s Pale Township

Four people were killed on Tuesday when their village in Sagaing Region’s Pale Township was hit by regime airstrikes during a Buddhist festival, according to local resistance authorities. The incident occurred as residents of Aing Ma, a village about 25 miles northwest of the junta-controlled town of Pale, were gathered at their local monastery for the annual Kahtein (Kathina) festival, held to mark the end of the Buddhist rains retreat. A fighter jet dropped several bombs near the monastery, killing residents of neighbouring houses, according to Zaw Htet, a member of the Pale Township People’s Administration Team. “Their target was the monastery, where a crowd had gathered for the Kahtein festival, but they missed it and struck a civilian home nearby,” he told Myanmar Now on Wednesday. Two of the victims were killed instantly, while a third was pronounced dead at the hospital. The fourth victim was an elderly woman who died of a heart attack during the airstrikes, according to Zaw Htet. Five others, including a one-year-old boy, sustained injuries, he added. At least six houses were also damaged by the junta aerial assaults, local sources said. According to Zaw Htet, there was no fighting in the area at the time of the attack, and no resistance forces were present in the village. Airstrikes were also reported in Taze Township on Monday, hitting a monastery and a high school in Zee Pauk, a village about 10 miles west of the township’s regime-controlled administrative centre. Farther north, in Indaw Township, the regime carried out airstrikes on Maw Luu, a resistance-held town near the border with Kachin State, hitting a hospital on Tuesday. Those attacks come as anti-junta forces intensify their push to capture Indaw, the township’s administrative centre, after a lull in fighting in October. According to Nyan Linn Thit Analytica, an independent research group, the regime’s air raids killed at least 455 civilians nationwide between May and August of this year. The group estimates that aerial bombings by the military have also damaged or destroyed at least 142 schools and 258 religious buildings since the 2021 military coup.

Myanmar junta airstrikes kill four during Buddhist festival in Sagaing’s Pale Township

Multiple airstrikes were also reported farther north in Taze and Indaw townships

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