Assaults by Myanmar’s military killed at least five people, including a resistance fighter, in Magway Region’s Yesagyo Township this week, according to local sources.
On Thursday, a paramotor attack on a school in Mauk Ka Lan, a village about 11 miles south of the town of Yesagyo, left a 14-year-old boy dead and two others injured, the spokesperson for the township’s People’s Defence Team said.
“The boy died when bombs exploded near a school in the eastern part of the village,” said the spokesperson, adding that there was no fighting near the village at the time of attack.
The other two victims were identified as a 16-year-old girl and a 24-year-old man. It was unclear if the minors were students at the school.
It is believed that the school was targeted because of junta suspicions that it was being used by local resistance forces. There are at least three anti-regime groups active in the area.
However, the township’s defence team denied that there were any armed groups stationed inside the school.
Villages near Mauk Ka Lan, including Sin Chaung, about three miles to the north, and Gway Cho, less than two miles to the northwest, are regarded as strongholds of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia.
Two days earlier, heavy artillery fire killed four people, including a resistance fighter, in Kan Beit, a village less than three miles south of Yesagyo. Four others were also reported injured.
Resistance forces said the shelling was launched from the junta’s Infantry Battalion 258 base north of the village.
Sources said that two shells landed on the village. The first exploded near a house next to a monastery at around 10:30pm, and the second struck civilians as they attempted to extinguish the fire caused by the initial blast.
“Five people, including a resistance fighter and his wife who were recently married, were killed instantly,” a local source told Myanmar Now.
The deceased were a 32-year-old woman who worked as teacher, a 17-year-old boy, and a 20-year-old resistance fighter and his 24-year-old wife, the source said.
Despite the presence of three junta battalion bases near the town, junta troops are confined to Yesagyo’s urban centre and areas near their bases.
The rest of the township, including villages on the outskirts of Yesagyo, is under the control of resistance forces.
Resistance forces in the area also carried out landmine attacks on junta supply convoys and confiscated food supplies in early July, according to the township’s defence team.
