Myanmar’s ruling junta yesterday said that it carried out an airstrike on a village in which dozens of people were reported killed, drawing condemnation from the UN and Western powers.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said he was “horrified” by the deadly airstrike, whose victims he said included schoolchildren performing dances, with the global body calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.
The death toll from the strike on Tuesday on the remote Kanbalu township in the Sagaing region remained unclear, with at least 50 fatalities and dozens of injuries reported by BBC Burmese, The Irrawaddy and Radio Free Asia, as well as by a witness.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Myanmar’s military has cracked down on dissent following a February 2021 coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government, with the ensuing unrest leaving more than 3,200 people dead, information from a local monitoring group showed.
The strike on Tuesday saw military aircraft strafe Pazi Gyi village, where scores of locals had gathered to mark the opening of a local defense force office connected to junta opponents, a witness told reporters.
One fighter jet and a helicopter were involved in the attack, a security source said.
The junta said that it had “launched limited airstrikes” after receiving a tip-off from locals about the event.
It did not say how many were killed, but added that the military had tried to minimize 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 on Tuesday said that some of the dead were militants in uniform, although “there could be some people with civilian clothes.”
The spokesman blamed mines planted by the People’s Defense Force 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.
RISK REMAINS: An official said that with the US presidential elections so close, it is unclear if China would hold war games or keep its reaction to angry words The Ministry of National Defense said it was “on alert” as it detected a Chinese aircraft carrier group to Taiwan’s south yesterday amid concerns in Taiwan about the possibility of a new round of Chinese war games. The ministry said in a statement that a Chinese navy group led by the carrier Liaoning had entered waters near the Bashi Channel, which connects the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean and separates Taiwan from the Philippines. It said the carrier group was expected to enter the Western Pacific. The military is keeping a close watch on developments and “exercising an
RESILIENCE: Once the system is operational, there would be no need to worry about the risks posed by disasters or other emergencies on communication systems, an official said Taiwan would have 24-hour access to low Earth orbit satellites by the end of this month through service provided by Eutelsat OneWeb as part of the nation’s effort to enhance signal resilience, a Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) official said yesterday. Earlier this year the Ministry of Digital Affairs, which partnered with Chunghwa Telecom on a two-year project to boost signal resilience throughout the nation, said it reached a milestone when it made contact with OneWeb’s satellites half of the time. It expects to have the capability to maintain constant contact with the satellites and have nationwide coverage by the end
REACTION TO LAI: A former US official said William Lai took a step toward stability with his National Day speech and the question was how Beijing would respond US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday warned China against taking any “provocative” action on Taiwan after Beijing’s reaction to President William Lai’s (賴清德) speech on Double Ten National Day on Thursday. Blinken, speaking in Laos after an ASEAN East Asia Summit, called the speech by Lai, in which he vowed to “resist annexation,” a “regular exercise.” “China should not use it in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions,” Blinken told reporters. “On the contrary, we want to reinforce — and many other countries want to reinforce — the imperative of preserving the status quo, and neither party taking any
The military detected a record 153 Chinese military aircraft around the nation, the Ministry of National Defense announced today, after China held a day of large-scale drills yesterday. The aircraft were spotted in the 25-hour period until 6am today, the ministry said in a statement — the most for a single day. Beijing deployed fighter jets, drones, warships and coast guard boats to encircle Taiwan yesterday, with Taiwan responding by dispatching "appropriate forces" and placing its outlying islands on heightened alert. The ministry typically records the numbers of Chinese warplanes and warships operating around Taiwan in 24-hour periods from 6am to 6am the