Schools closed in resistance stronghold after deadly assault by Myanmar junta

All schools in resistance-held areas of Sagaing Region’s Depayin Township have been closed after a junta attack on a school in the area left at least 20 children and two teachers dead on Monday. Local resistance forces told Myanmar Now on Tuesday that the children killed in the airstrike on the village of Oe Htein Twin in Depayin were buried on the day of the deadly assault. “We buried the bodies, some of which were disfigured beyond recognition, yesterday,” said a representative of the township’s People’s Defence Team, which operates under Myanmar’s publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG). “So far, the death toll stands at 22,” he added. At least 20 students from the second to the eleventh grades were killed and 50 others were injured when a fighter jet dropped two bombs on the school, situated in the northern part of the village, as some 200 students were taking exams, sources said. The bombs landed on the main school building and near the flagpole in front of the school, according to a man from a neighbouring village who witnessed the assault. “The aircraft flew past our village school, then circled back over Sat Pyar Kyin, a village less than a mile east of Oe Htein Twin. As soon as it turned back, it dropped two bombs in a row on the Oe Htein Twin school,” said the man, who was evacuating children from a school in another nearby village at the time of the attack, after receiving reports of an approaching junta warplane. Four of the main building’s five classrooms were badly damaged by the bombardment, as were two other buildings in the school compound, according to volunteers who helped to recover the victims’ shattered bodies. “Some of the bodies were missing heads or legs. We also recovered three severed hands,” said one volunteer, adding that two of the hands appeared to be from children and one from an adult. “We also found a dismembered leg, torn off at the upper thigh. The rest of the body was never located. One female teacher died after losing all of her limbs.” The bodies of victims killed by a junta airstrike on the village of Oe Htein Twin in Sagaing’s Depayin Township on May 12 are prepared for burial (Photo: AFP) According to a local anti-junta fighter, the injured are receiving treatment at clinics in resistance-held areas. Some were in critical condition, he said. “The nearest clinic is about three miles away. Some passed away due to blood loss. Most of the children were hit by shrapnel in their thighs, heads, abdomens, and arms,” he said. In a statement released on Monday, the NUG condemned the deadly aerial assault and called on the international community to impose stronger sanctions on the military regime and support safe spaces for students to learn without fear. “This is not the first time. They have repeatedly targeted schools and hospitals in the past. The more intense the fighting, the more inhumane their actions become, and the more misinformation they spread,” said a deputy minister from the NUG’s Ministry of Education. In the wake of Monday’s attack, a number of pro-junta Telegram channels claimed that resistance forces use schools as hideouts or to produce landmines—claims denied by anti-regime forces. “We make sure to stay away from public places such as hospitals, clinics, religious buildings, and schools. It is a place meant solely for children, where they can be safe and free. That’s why we strongly condemn the junta’s baseless and shameful accusations,” said a local NUG administrator. The attack on Oe Htein Twin is the deadliest in Depayin Township since September 2022, when the regime deployed Mi-35 combat helicopters to open fire on a school in the village of Letyetkone, killing at least 13 people, including six children. At around midnight on Monday, the military also carried out an airstrike on Gaung Su, a village about 11 miles south of the junta-controlled town of Depayin. No casualties were reported. Due to the ongoing threat of junta airstrikes, many parents are reluctant to send their children to schools in resistance-held areas in Depayin Township, local sources said. “Some parents said they don’t want to send their children to schools after the incident [in Oe Htein Twin],” a resistance fighter from a nearby village said. “But we will find alternative ways to provide learning opportunities for children if we can’t use schools anymore.”

Schools closed in resistance stronghold after deadly assault by Myanmar junta

The regime’s latest mass killing of schoolchildren has made many parents reluctant to use schools in resistance-held areas

Subscribe for full access

Sent to die: Myanmar’s conscripts caught between a junta’s war and a nation’s collapse

Magway emerges as key front in junta’s strategy to claw back control of western Myanmar

Beyond the iron bars: Into a broader world of confinement

Burned, beaten, and hunted: Myanmar worker survives alleged torture in Thailand

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

Resistance forces pushed back as Myanmar military advances south of Indaw

Myanmar military seeks to reopen Chin State airport after retaking Falam, raising resistance concerns

Myanmar junta expands crackdown to Aung San statues in bid to erase opposition symbols

Rohingya civilians injured, POWs killed by Myanmar junta airstrikes near Bangladesh border