Myanmar junta continues airstrikes despite extending ceasefire

Myanmar’s military has continued to conduct airstrikes around the country despite extending its post-quake ceasefire until the end of the month on Tuesday, multiple sources have reported. On Wednesday, the junta targeted a village in Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township, killing five people and injuring three others, according to a woman who survived the attack. “An airstrike hit our clinic in Let Hloke Taung this morning. Five people were killed and three were injured—two of them critically. I barely managed to escape,” she said, speaking to Myanmar Now hours after the incident. Three of the deceased were men and two were men, she added. The regime also carried out a series of airstrikes on Tuesday and Wednesday in Sagaing’s Kani Township. The attacks, targeting villages near the town of Kani, resulted in the deaths of livestock and the destruction of homes, according to a local resident. “The airstrikes have been relentless, occurring day and night. Yesterday, they bombed Nat Gyi, Moke Htaw, and Tha Min Chan five times, and today, there were three more airstrikes on Tha Min Chan village using a paramotor,” the resident said on Wednesday. A primary school in Gway Kone, a village in Sagaing’s Wuntho Township, was also hit with a 500-pound bomb late Tuesday, according to local sources. No further details were available at the time of reporting. Airstrikes were also reported on Tuesday near the town of Minhla in western Bago Region following a clash between junta troops and members of the anti-regime People’s Defence Force (PDF) along the Yangon-Pyay Road. “Yesterday [April 22], they dropped nine bombs in three separate strikes on our area, injuring four civilians. The bombs fell mainly in civilian areas, far from clash sites,” said a local PDF leader. Regime forces also carried out a drone strike on Kamma Yan, a village located to the west of the junta’s Military Operations Command 12 in Karen (Kayin) State’s Kawkareik Township, on Tuesday. Three civilians were injured in the attack, according to a report by the Karen Information Centre (KIC), a local news outlet. A drone bomb also hit an Islamic religious building near Kan Ni, a village located about three miles southwest of the Karen State town of Kyondoe, the KIC report added. In the week prior to the extension of the ceasefire, junta airstrikes killed at least 20 people and injured 40 others in territories under the control of the Karen National Union, KIC reported. The junta declared a temporary ceasefire from April 2 to April 22 to aid in recovery efforts after the powerful earthquake that hit central Myanmar on March 28. Despite the move, however, airstrikes continued, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. During three days of attacks that began on April 18, the regime killed 37 civilians in Mandalay Region’s Thabeikkyin Township alone, according to local residents and resistance sources. Many of the victims were children, they added. Among the targets of the junta’s assaults have been a number of Buddhist monasteries, resulting in the deaths of monks and displaced civilians taking refuge at the sites.

Myanmar junta continues airstrikes despite extending ceasefire

Aerial attacks have been reported in Sagaing and Bago regions and Karen State since the regime extended its ceasefire on Tuesday

Subscribe for full access

Fear grips Mandalay as junta-backed militias and kidnappers prey on residents

For Myanmar migrants in Thailand, hope is a 100-baht lottery ticket

‘Will it be different this time, Grandson?’

Across a border and into a war: A Karenni leader’s final journey

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

Nighttime junta airstrike kills 2 and injures 6 in Pauktaw Township

Suu Kyi speaks to son for first time in more than five years

Six women killed by Myanmar junta airstrike in Budalin

Yangon’s luxury condo buyers left waiting as projects stall