Myanmar junta kills five in Christmas Eve airstrike on IDP camp

Five civilians, including an infant and a 10-year-old child, were killed by an airstrike on a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mandalay Region’s Thabeikkyin Township on Wednesday, according to local residents. The attack took place at around 7pm and targeted Twin Nge, a village located on the eastern bank of the Ayeyarwady River about 25 miles northeast of the town of Thabeikkyin. The regime recaptured the town from resistance forces in July. “The bodies of a woman and her child were destroyed beyond recognition. Another mother died while being transported to the hospital,” said a local woman. The second woman was the mother of a newborn baby who also died in the attack, the source told Myanmar Now. The fifth victim was identified as a man in his 50s. Three others were injured. The attack comes after a series of deadly airstrikes claimed the lives of seven civilians in Sagaing Region’s Wetlet Township on Tuesday. Four of the victims, including a woman in her 80s, her 35-year-old daughter, and two children, aged seven and 14, were killed when their bunker collapsed on them during the airstrike on the village of Ngar Pat Chaung. Junta aircraft hit the village three times, hitting a temple and a number of houses. Two of the other three victims were elderly women, while the third was a man in his 20s, residents said. The aftermath of an airstrike on the village of Ngar Pat Chaung in Sagaing’s Wetlet Township on December 23 (Photo: Wetlet Information Network) Ngar Pat Chaung, situated along the western bank of the Ayeyarwady River, came under heavy attack from Myanmar’s military in July, as a convoy of junta naval vessels made its way north from Mandalay. Airstrikes carried out on July 17 killed at least 12 residents of the village. As the regime recalims territory east of the Ayeyarwady in Mandalay Region’s Madaya and Singu townships, thousands of civilians have fled across the river to Sagaing Region’s Wetlet, Shwebo, and Khin-U townships, where resistance forces maintain a strong presence. According to reports, the regime’s nearly daily airstrikes on the three townships killed as many as 60 people—most of them civilians—in the first half of December. In Wetlet Township alone, nearly two dozen residents were killed between December 2 and 19, with another 30 injured, various sources reported. According to a resistance fighter from Wetlet Township, the regime’s attacks may be aimed at preventing anti-junta forces in Sagaing Region from crossing the river. “Their airstrikes in eastern Wetlet have mostly targeted areas along the riverbank,” he said. “We believe they are either trying to harm displaced people or prevent reinforcements from reaching Singu and Madaya,” he said. On December 19, the regime announced that its troops had recaptured Singu after a month of heavy fighting and were pursuing resistance forces across the Ayeyarwady River. Sources close to the resistance confirmed that the junta sent an additional 200 troops to Wetlet Township in the second week of December.

Myanmar junta kills five in Christmas Eve airstrike on IDP camp

The attack comes a day after another that left seven people, including children and elderly women, dead in Sagaing’s Wetlet Township

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