Myanmar ruling junta admits to air strike that killed at least 100

Myanmar ruling junta admits to air strike that ‘killed at least 100 people’: Military aircraft strafed small village in ‘abominable’ attack condemned by UN and West

Witnesses said that as many as 16 children were cremated after the attack
One fighter jet and a helicopter were involved in the attack, reports said

Myanmar’s ruling junta confirmed on Wednesday that it carried out an air strike on a village in which dozens of civilians were reported killed, drawing condemnation from the United Nations and Western powers.

The official death toll from the Tuesday morning strike on the remote Kanbalu township in the central Sagaing region remains unclear, with at least 100 fatalities reported by the BBC, The Irrawaddy and Radio Free Asia.

A villager involved in rescue and recovery efforts at Pazi Gyi village – who asked not to be named to protect his safety – said body parts had been strewn across the site of the attack, and estimated the death toll to be higher than 120.

Following a coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government in 2021, the military’s crackdown on dissent and armed groups opposed to their rule has left more than 3,200 people dead, according to a local monitoring group.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said he was ‘horrified’ by the deadly air strike, whose victims he said included schoolchildren performing dances, with the global body calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Myanmar’s ruling junta confirmed on Wednesday that it carried out an air strike on a village in which dozens of people were reported killed, drawing condemnation from the United Nations and Western powers. Pictured: A photograph shows debris in the aftermath of the strike

On Wednesday, the villager told AFP news agency it was difficult to identify the dead. ‘We can not identify anymore who is who among the dead because they all became pieces,’ he said.

The man estimated about 80 bodies had been cremated on Wednesday, with rescuers halting efforts to recover roughly 40 more bodies ‘because we were afraid of more air strikes’.

Tuesday’s strike saw military aircraft strafe Pazi Gyi, where scores of locals had gathered to mark the opening of a local defence force office connected to junta opponents, a witness told AFP.

One fighter jet and a helicopter were involved in the attack, a security source told AFP. The junta confirmed Wednesday it had ‘launched limited air strikes’ after receiving a tip-off from locals about the event.

It did not say how many were killed but insisted the military had tried to minimise harm to civilians.

‘We heard that more people were killed because of big explosions from weapons and ammunitions… displayed at the opening event,’ a junta statement said.

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun late on Tuesday said some of the dead were anti-coup fighters in uniform, though ‘there could be some people with civilian clothes’.

The spokesman went on to blame mines planted by the People’s Defence Force — coup opponents — for some of the deaths.

Sagaing region — near the country’s second-largest city of Mandalay — has put up some of the fiercest resistance to the military’s rule, with intense fighting raging there for months.

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told military broadcast channel Myawaddy late on Tuesday the attack on the ceremony held by the National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration, for their armed People’s Defence Force (PDF) was aimed at restoring peace and stability in the region.

‘During that opening ceremony, we conducted the attack. PDF members were killed. They are the ones opposing the government of the country, the people of the country,’ said Zaw Min Tun.

‘According to our ground information we hit the place of their weapons’ storage and that exploded and people died due to that,’ he said.

Referring to accusations of civilian casualties, he said ‘some people who were forced to support them probably died as well’.

Pictured: The aftermath of an airstrike in Pazigyi village in Sagaing Region’s Kanbalu Township, Myanmar, Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Zaw Min Tun said photographs showed some of those killed were in uniform and some in civilian clothes, accusing the PDF of falsely claiming civilian deaths when their forces were killed.

He also accused members of the PDF of committing ‘war crimes’ and killing ‘monks, teachers and innocent residents’ in the area who did not support the opposition.

Citing residents of the region, BBC Burmese, Radio Free Asia (RFA) Burmese, and the Irrawaddy news portal reported between 80 and 100 people, including civilians, had been killed in the attack by the military.

According to a PDF member, about 100 bodies, including 16 children, had been cremated.

‘The exact death toll is still unclear since … body parts are scattered all over the place,’ said the PDF member, who declined to be identified.

The attack came as Myanmar was preparing to mark the Buddhist new year — Thingyan — which begins Thursday and traditionally involves public water fights, but celebrations are expected to be muted.

‘As the people of Myanmar celebrate their New Year, the EU is deeply shocked by reports of the latest atrocity committed by the military regime in Sagaing, taking the lives of dozens of innocent civilians,’ EU foreign affairs spokesperson Nabila Massrali said.

France’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the ‘abominable’ strike demonstrated ‘the strategy of indiscriminate violence the Myanmar junta has inflicted on Myanmar’s people for more than two years’.

UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned the attack and reiterated his call ‘for the military to end the campaign of violence against the Myanmar population throughout the country’, according to a statement from his spokesperson.

Washington also denounced the ‘reprehensible’ attack.

‘We strongly condemn the regime’s air strikes and urge the regime to cease the violence,’ US State Department Counselor Derek Chollet tweeted.

Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director Phil Robertson said the strike was likely to have a chilling effect across Myanmar society.

‘I think this will cause greater fear amongst the people,’ he told AFP. ‘I think in the future, communities will be reluctant to hold a… mass gathering of any sort, recognising that they could be bombed’.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Myanmar conflict tracker, the military has carried out 689 air and drone strike attacks since the coup.

Rights groups have called for the international community to further restrict Myanmar’s access to aviation fuel in the wake of the attack.

But Bangkok-based security analyst Anthony Davis told AFP that demand was ‘divorced from reality’.

‘Russia is a firm ally of the junta and one of the world’s largest oil exporters. Do we seriously believe Moscow will sit and watch the Myanmar Air Force being slowly grounded for a lack of aviation fuel?’ he said.

In October, a military jet attacked a concert, killing at least 50 civilians, singers and members of an ethnic minority insurgent force in Kachin State in the north.

Kyaw Zaw, a spokesman for the NUG, said it believed nearly 100 people were killed in the Tuesday attack when air force jets dropped bombs on villagers and helicopter gunships then followed up, calling it ‘another senseless, barbaric, brutal attack by the military’.

The military denies accusations it has committed atrocities against civilians and says it is fighting ‘terrorists’ determined to destabilise the country.

The military has ruled Myanmar for most of the past 60 years saying it is the only institution capable of holding the diverse country together.

Suu Kyi, 77, is serving 33 years in prison for various offences that she denied and her party has been disbanded.

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