Six civilians killed in Myanmar junta airstrikes on monastery and villages in Sagaing

Six civilians were killed and over 20 injured in regime airstrikes on a monastery and villages in Sagaing Region’s Shwebo and Wetlet townships at the start of the week, according to local residents and resistance forces. On Sunday morning, a junta jet fighter conducted three bombing runs on the Mahasi Meditation Monastery compound in Seikkhun village in Shwebo Township, where the late Buddhist monk Mahasi Sayadaw resided, stated the township’s People’s Defense Organisation (PDO). The airstrike killed two displaced persons aged in their early twenties, Hnin Thant Kyaw and Win May, and injured eight others, including children and elderly residents. An official from the Shwebo PDO said that the bomb hit an area where elderly practitioners were observing precepts on a Uposatha (religious observance) day, as well as where displaced peoples were taking refuge following a junta incursion into the Shwebo area late last month. “They intentionally dropped [bombs] targeting displaced people, there was no [ground fighting] at all. Also, since it was an observance day there were precept observers as well. Because they are targeting displaced persons, we have no choice but to make them disperse from the monastery,” the official said. Photos released by Shwebo-based resistance forces revealed that numerous buildings inside the monastery compound, including Dhamma halls and meditation centers, were damaged in the bombing. Located near the Shwebo-Monywa road, Seikkhun is a large village with over 2,000 households. Locals said the junta has established a foothold at the village police station. A building hit by a bomb inside the Mahasi Monastery compound (Photo: PDO member) On Monday morning, one day after the monastery attack, a regime Y-12 transport aircraft dropped about 50 bombs on four villages in adjacent Wetlet Township, killing four civilians and injuring around 13 others, according to local resistance forces. Locals said the bombing began shortly after midnight while people slept, hitting Mekone village, where the four civilians were killed, as well as Yaehtwet, Uyin, and Kyeekan (North) villages in the township’s west. “All those affected were civilians. There was no ground raid, nothing at all. The injured include women. We are compiling the list of casualties, but it is taking some time because everyone is fleeing,” said one Wetlet local. Local resistance forces urged people to dig bomb shelters and strictly follow air attack warnings broadcast via walkie-talkies as the regime continues to target civilian infrastructure in its air attacks. At the end of last month, a junta column arrived in Obo village in western Shwebo Township. Troops have since tightened security at entrances on the Wetlet Township side, local resistance members said. “Mainly, I see it as instilling fear in the public,” one member said. “Bombing like this while the public is sleeping, and targeting non-military targets like monasteries and schools, are truly despicable war crimes.” Many Myanmar Buddhists visit monasteries during the three-month rains retreat period—often referred to as the Buddhist Lent—but this hasn’t prevented the regime from targeting monastic centres. In August, an airstrike on a monastery during a meditation retreat in Swe Lel O village, Myaung Township, killed over a dozen people. Efforts by Myanmar Now to reach Aung Zaw Oo, the regime’s Sagaing Region spokesperson, to comment on the targeting of monasteries and civilians, went unanswered. The junta has recently escalated military momentum in the Katha–Kawlin–Kanbalu area along the Sagaing Region and Kachin State border. They have also launched successive airstrikes on villages west of the Shwebo-Mandalay road in lower Sagaing’s Wetlet and Shwebo townships. Map showing the location of villages hit by airstrikes in Sagaing Region on October 11 and 12

Six civilians killed in Myanmar junta airstrikes on monastery and villages in Sagaing

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