Global Courant 2023-04-11 15:27:30
YANGON – According to media and members of a local resistance movement, at least 50 people were killed in an airstrike by the army at an event attended by opponents of the regime in central Myanmar on Tuesday.
Citing residents in the Sagaing region, BBC Burmese, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Irrawaddy news portal reported that between 50 and 100 people, including civilians, were killed in the attack.
A spokesman for the ruling army did not return a call seeking comment.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since a 2021 coup, with attacks by ethnic minority armies and resistance fighters challenging the army’s rule, which has responded with airstrikes and heavy weapons, including in civilian areas.
A member of the local People’s Defense Force (PDF), an anti-junta militia, told Reuters that fighter jets had fired at a ceremony held to open their local office.
“Until now, the exact number of victims is still unknown. We can’t collect all the bodies yet,” said the PDF member, who declined to be identified.
At least 1.2 million people have been displaced by post-coup fighting, according to the United Nations.
Tuesday’s incident could be one of the deadliest in a series of airstrikes since a jet plane attacked a concert in October, killing at least 50 civilians, local singers and members of an armed ethnic minority group in Kachin state.
Myanmar’s pro-democracy government-in-exile, the government of national unity, condemned the attack, calling it “another example of the military’s indiscriminate use of extreme violence against civilians”.
At least eight civilians, including children, were killed in an airstrike on a village in northwestern Myanmar in March, according to a human rights group, ethnic minority rebels and media outlets.
The army has denied international allegations that it committed atrocities against civilians and says it is fighting “terrorists” determined to destabilize the country.
Western countries have imposed sanctions on the junta and its vast business network to try to choke off its revenues and access to weapons from key suppliers such as Russia. REUTERS
