Myanmar regime kills three in airstrikes on hospital in resistance stronghold

Junta airstrikes targeting a hospital in Sagaing Region’s Budalin Township killed at least three people on Monday—the same day that the junta took a major step towards entrenching itself in power as a “civilian” government. At around 1pm, two fighter jets dropped at least four bombs on the hospital, located in resistance-held territory north of the town of Budalin, sources said. Patients were among the dead, and many others were injured, the sources added. One resident described what appears to have been a double-tap strike, with the second attack aimed at maximising casualties by targeting those assisting victims of the first strike. “As the injured were being evacuated, the second airstrike hit the same site again as rescue efforts were still in progress,” the local man said. Budalin is located less than 25 miles north of Monywa, the capital of Sagaing Region and the seat of the regime’s Northwestern Regional Military Command. While the town is under junta control, resistance forces hold most rural areas. There was no fighting near the site of Monday’s attack, and no junta forces have been seen advancing into the area, according to local sources. In the third week of March, a junta airstrike also struck a school and a monastery in the village of Su Lay Kone in Kani Township, located west of the Chindwin River opposite Budalin Township. One elderly person was killed in that attack and at least four others were injured. Despite the regime’s efforts to bolster its claims to political legitimacy by positioning its leader, Min Aung Hlaing, to become Myanmar’s next president, it has shown no signs of easing its relentless assaults on its opponents. Even fuel shortages caused by the US-Israel war on Iran have done little to slacken the pace of the junta’s airstrikes on civilian targets around the country, which killed more than 300 people in March alone. These attacks, which routinely target areas without any active conflict, aim to weaken civilian support for resistance forces, according to military analysts.

Myanmar regime kills three in airstrikes on hospital in resistance stronghold

The attack in Sagaing Region’s Budalin Township comes as the junta continues with its efforts to establish a new “civilian” government

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