Myanmar junta bombs Chin State township hundreds of times in one week

The military regime’s air force has conducted more than 400 airstrikes within the past week as fighting intensified in Falam, Chin State, according to sources in the Chin National Defence Force (CNDF).Battles for control of Falam broke out in November of last year, with anti-junta forces capturing the district- and township-level police stations, general administration office, and a hospital by the end of December. Only the army’s Infantry Battalion (IB) 268 base in the southwestern part of the town remained under junta control, according to locals. The CNDF is one of six groups in the Chin Brotherhood (CB) alliance, the grouping of anti-junta forces fighting to seize the town from the military.Clashes escalated again starting on March 11 as the anti-junta forces sought to capture the IB 268 base for full control of the town and regime forces responded with increased airstrikes in the base’s surroundings, according to CNDF spokesperson Salai Timmy.“On March 15 alone, there were 158 aerial attacks by Y-12 transport aircraft and jets. We’ve been keeping count,” Salai Timmy said on Monday morning. “Over these past seven days, there would be between 400 and 500 airstrikes.”The extent of damage to the town from the four-month battle remains unconfirmed. Falam in 2020 (Photo: Ministry of Information) Falam is on a strategically important route connecting the Chin State capital of Hakha—some 40 miles to the southwest—with Kalay Township, Sagaing Region to the northeast. Falam Township also shares a border with the Indian state of Mizoram. Salai Timmy surmised that junta forces were concentrating their firepower on defending their base in Falam due to its proximity to Hakha, where the military has managed to retain control.“From a military point of view, if IB 268 in Falam falls, it will create a security threat for the capital, Hakha, so the junta is absolutely focused on defending it,” he said.The junta has been trying to deploy reinforcements to Falam since December of last year. Chin resistance forces intercepted a formation of nearly 100 reinforcement troops that month, capturing dozens as prisoners of war. However the junta had succeeded in sending a total of around 130 reinforcement troops since January, most of them since March 10, according to Salai Timmy. Chin State online news outlets have reported that the anti-junta forces have recently captured additional prisoners of war. The junta has not yet responded to these reports. Prisoners of war captured during the battle for Falam (Video still: CNDF) The towns of Rihkhawdar and Webula, located in Falam Township on the India-Myanmar border, are still held by Chin resistance forces who captured them in previous years.Since the battle for the remaining territory in Falam broke out, thousands of the town’s residents have reportedly fled to the Indian border and elsewhere for safety.Since Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, the relatively sparsely populated, mountainous Chin State in the country’s northwest has become a stronghold for anti-junta armed forces, who now claim to control around 80 percent of the state’s area. The CB is in control of three of the state’s nine townships—Matupi, Mindat, and Kanpetlet—while their ally the Arakan Army (AA) has held Paletwa Township since taking over early last year. Forces led by the older group Chin National Army, the armed wing of the Chin National Front, control Tonzang Township. The junta is now only able to operate in the remaining four townships: Hakha, Thantlang, Tedim, and parts of Falam including the IB 268 base. As of Myanmar’s 2014 census, Chin State had a population of just under 500,000. An estimated 120,000 residents of the state are internally displaced, in addition to some 45,000 who have fled across the border into Mizoram, according to the Institute of Chin Affairs (ICA).An ICA official said that the greatest challenge most displaced people face in the long-term is meeting their own basic needs. "Refugees who have crossed to the Indian side are facing considerable difficulties... They no longer have the same freedom they once had,” the official said. “Even if nongovernmental organisations want to provide aid, there are increasing restrictions from either the state or central government of India. In the long term, we don’t know how the situation will change.”While Myanmar’s military regime has lost control over most of Chin State’s territory, it is still capable of carrying out airstrikes in areas held by the anti-junta forces, which has deterred displaced people from returning to their homes, the official noted. Airstrikes have killed some 250 Chin people, injured more than 400, and destroyed some 1,200 homes and at least 39 religious buildings in Chin State in the four years since the coup, according to data reported by the ICA in February. Fighters of the Chin Brotherhood alliance meeting with local people (Photo: PDF Zoland)

Myanmar junta bombs Chin State township hundreds of times in one week

Amid ongoing, intense urban warfare in the town of Falam near the Indian border, junta aircraft carried out some 150 airstrikes in a single day, according to Chin anti-junta fighters

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