A junta airstrike on displaced people’s camps killed at least three civilians including a four-year-old on Monday in southern Shan State’s Pekhon Township, where the military has been fighting to expel Karenni resistance fighters, locals said.
According to the same sources as well as casualty reports from a human rights organisation operating in the area, there were also three people injured in the attack, which took place at around midnight in Monday’s predawn hours.
“A 29-year-old man died on the spot. A four-year-old girl and a 26-year-old woman were critically injured and later died from their injuries,” said Banya Khung Aung, a spokesperson for the Karenni Human Rights Group.
Three people including a 30-year-old pregnant woman also sustained injuries in the aerial assault.
Locals said the deceased were members of the same family, which had been displaced by recent clashes in Moebye, a large, strategically important village tract near the Karenni (Kayah) State border and commonly called a “gateway” between Shan and Karenni states.
The two camps targeted in the junta aerial assaults serve as refuges for internally displaced persons (IDPs) between the villages of La Ei and Bi Kin, around 14 miles south of Pekhon and 10 miles west of Moebye, which was recently recaptured by regime forces.
“Luckily, one of the bombs failed to detonate,” a Pekhon Township resident said.
Located about six miles northwest of the junta-controlled Karenni State capital, Loikaw, Moebye was taken over by Karenni resistance forces in 2023 and held until it fell back into the Myanmar military’s hands on Sunday, per junta-operated media outlets.
Junta forces have deployed large numbers of reinforcements to the Light Infantry Battalion 422 base on the northern outskirts of Moebye and the surrounding area since the beginning of this year.
Despite claims in the regime-run media that the military had fully recaptured Moebye, locals said clashes have continued in the area.
Fleeing their homes amid the fighting, thousands of Pekhon Township residents have fled to Demoso Township, Karenni State and nearby areas. Food and shelter for the IDPs are in short supply and badly needed, especially during the monsoon season, according to local human rights workers.
“They have limited transportation options and most of the shelters are already crowded with displaced people,” the KHRG spokesperson said.
Last month, eight people died and more than a dozen were injured when a junta warplane bombed a small-scale mining site in Karenni State’s Hpasawng Township after clashes resumed in the vicinity.
Karenni resistance forces took control of a junta base in Hpasawng Township, some 60 miles south of Pekhon Township, on June 30, and claimed to have shot down a junta warplane in the same township a few days later. Clashes are ongoing in the area.
