Airstrikes kill ten people in Sagaing region of Myanmar: Reports
A Myanmar military airstrike on a village has reportedly killed ten civilians as fighting ravages swathes of the country since a military coup in 2021 toppled Myanmar's democratically-elected government and put the junta at the helm.
Media reports quoting local sources said on Wednesday that a military jet dropped three bombs on Nyaung Kone village in the northern Sagaing region on Tuesday afternoon.
According to Ko Zaw Tun, an anti-coup fighter from the village, ten people were killed and eight wounded in the aerial attack.
“There was no fighting, but they came to bomb the village,” he said, adding 11 houses had been destroyed in the raid.
A resident of Nyaung Kone also said he and other locals had cremated the dead later that evening.
“We did not know what their (the military’s) next plan is. So, we just held funerals for them as soon as we could,” he was quoted as saying.
Images published by local media showed people working to douse smoldering debris and ash, and a large building in ruins.
Also in April, the military bombed a gathering in Sagaing that locals said killed about 170 people.
The United Nations said in March that the Myanmar military carried out more than 300 air strikes in the last year in its efforts to crush out resistance to the junta.
The development comes as the junta is facing ever-growing resistance nationwide from People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and ethnic armed organizations.
Rights groups accuse the military of extrajudicial killings, razing villages and using air strikes as collective punishment of its opponents.
Myanmar has been in chaos since the military seized control on February 1, 2021. The UN estimates that some 14,000 people have been arrested and at least 2,000 killed since then.
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