Myanmar military aircraft bombed two sites in western and central Myanmar last week, causing four fatalities and injuring 17 people. The targets were the base of an ethnic armed organisation in Tedim, Chin State, and a local administrative office of the publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG) in Htilin, Magway Region.
There were three casualties and 12 people injured in the attack on an office of the People’s Administration Team more than one mile north of Htilin town on April 20. One person was killed and five wounded the following day when a base belonging to the Chin National Army (CNA)’s Brigade 4 was hit in another aerial assault near the India-Myanmar border.
In both airstrikes, junta aircraft dropped multiple bombs—two on the CNA site, and three on and around the office in Htilin.
“One fell right on the roof of the office and the other two fell in the surrounding area,” said a member of the Yaw Defence Force, a resistance group which helped clear the site in the aftermath of the attack in Htilin.
Further information was not available about the victims in Tedim, but the YDF member said that the casualties in the bombing of the administrative office included one woman and two men.
Eight women and four men were injured, he added, noting that four of these individuals were in critical condition.
The YDF member described some of the worst injuries as broken femurs, major burns, a lost big toe, and chest wounds due to shrapnel.
Salai Htet Ni, a spokesperson for the CNA, attributed an increase in recent aerial attacks to rising junta casualties in ground battles with the resistance.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said in a March 27 speech that his forces would be taking “decisive action” against ethnic armed organisations providing aid to the anti-coup resistance movement; shortly after, the military killed more than 20 civilians in airstrikes in Chin State.
“The military is relying on the air force to eradicate us and to dominate the territory,” Salai Htet Ni told Myanmar Now.
Four days before the bombing of their base, the CNA’s ground forces had intercepted a military convoy of three trucks and 100 troops heading towards Tedim from Kalay, Sagaing Region. Their attack slowed down the unit, which reportedly had still not arrived in Tedim at the time of reporting.
Salai Htet Ni speculated that the aerial attack on the CNA’s post was carried out in retaliation for the roadside ambush. The CNA also recently destroyed a military convoy of 30 vehicles travelling through Chin State from Falam to Hakha.
In Htilin, there had been no recent battles between guerrilla forces and the military prior to the targeting of the administrative office.
The YDF member noted that phone and internet access to the township had been cut off since April 15, and that since the airstrike, some 100 junta soldiers had arrived in the area. The aerial bombing and the troops’ presence forced some 5,000 locals from 10 villages to flee their homes, anticipating further attacks by the occupying forces.
Similarly, regime soldiers also closed in on the village of Pa Zi Gyi in Sagaing Region’s Kanbalu Township last week, whose own People’s Administration Team office was bombed on April 11 in what turned out to be the deadliest airstrike since the coup, killing around 170 people who were present at its opening ceremony.
