17 civilians killed in airstrikes on village

AIRSTRIKES by the military on a village under the control of the pro-democracy resistance in the country’s northwest have killed at least 17 civilians, including nine children, local residents and a human rights group said.

The morning aerial attacks on Kanan village in Sagaing region’s Khampat town, just south of the Indian border, also wounded about 20 people, they said.

Myanmar is wracked by violence that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

The country’s independent online media and the BBC’S Myanmar-language service reported the air attack on Sunday, but the military government denied responsibility, claiming that it was false news spread by Khit Thit Media, an independent online news service sympathetic to the anti-military resistance.

The report by the state-run MRTV television in its Sunday night news broadcast cited an unnamed official from the area as saying there had been no plane flying in the area that morning.

The military government in the past two years has stepped up airstrikes against two enemies: the armed pro-democracy Peoples Defense Force, and ethnic minority guerilla groups that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades.

The two groups sometimes carry out joint operations against the army.

In response to accusations of abuses, the military government often accuses pro-democracy forces in the area of carrying out violent campaigns of terror.

But analysts for the United Nations and NGOS have gathered credible evidence of large-scale human rights abuses by the army, including the burning of entire villages and displacement of close to two million people that has triggered a humanitarian crisis.