Two children were among the civilians killed in junta air force attacks on Pauktaw Township, Rakhine State on Thursday, according to local sources, part of an ongoing aerial bombing campaign that hit three states this week.
Two other villagers were killed and several sustained injuries in the same Pauktaw Township villages, located on islands in an estuary east of the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe, one of the last territories in Rakhine State that remains under junta control.
“A Y-12 aircraft flew along the mountain ridge, first dropping bombs on Ah Nauk Ye village and then Sin Tet Maw village,” a man from Pauktaw Township said. “It attacked civilian targets deliberately and swiftly.”
The casualties occurred in the villages of Kyauk Taung, Ma Nyin Kaing, and Sin Tet Maw on Pein Hne Chaung, the central island in the Pha Yone Kar island group in Pauktaw Township.
The slain civilians were identified as a 24-year-old man from Ma Nyin Kaing; and a 12-year-old girl, five-year-old boy, and 50-year-old woman from Kyauk Taung.
The villages, like most of Pauktaw Township, have been under the control of the ethnic armed organisation Arakan Army (AA) since January 2024, two months after the AA launched a large-scale offensive against the Myanmar military.
Civilian deaths were reported in three villages—Kyauk Taung, Ma Nyin Kaing, and Sin Tet Maw—on Pein Hne Chaung, the central island in the Pha Yone Kar island group in Pauktaw Township, according to Arakan Princess, a local media outlet affiliated with Arakan Army.
At least 17 people also sustained injuries by the junta aerial assaults, according to local Rakhine media outlets.
Pauktaw’s urban areas have suffered extensive damage from shelling and airstrikes amid clashes between the military and anti-junta forces.
Tensions have also been rising in Sittwe Township in the wake of the AA’s takeover of the army’s Western Regional Military Command headquarters in Ann, Rakhine State in December.
On Monday, anti-regime forces began firing on the Sittwe Regional Operations Command Centre and three other junta bases on the outskirts of Sittwe using heavy artillery, according to local sources.
Thousands of displaced people from rural areas, forced to flee their villages by violence or expelled by junta troops, have been seeking refuge in Sittwe’s monasteries since mid-2024.
At least eight people including children were also killed in bombing raids the previous day in Kachin State’s Momauk Township, local sources and resistance forces said.
“Wat Hin, Nant Inn, and Aung Myin Thar villages were hit by junta airstrikes. At least eight people died and three others sustained injuries,” said Col. Naw Bu, the spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The aerial attack occurred as fighting intensified this week in the town of Bhamo less than 50 miles west of the Chinese border, with anti-regime forces led by the KIA fighting junta ground troops for control. Bhamo is located some ten miles west of Momauk.
The military regime has also escalated aerial attacks in the territories under the control of Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in northern Shan State after Chinese-mediated ceasefire talks between junta officials and the TNLA’s leaders stalled this week.
The latest junta airstrikes killed an elderly woman and injured four other civilians including two children in in Nawnghkio Township’s Lauk Hpan village on Thursday, according to the TNLA’s press team.
On Friday, a junta drone strike also damaged a monastery in Ohn Ma Thee village, around 12 miles southwest of Nawnghkio.
At least three people died and four others were wounded when a junta warplane dropped bombs on densely populated urban wards in Nawnghkio on Wednesday.
