Junta air strike in Myanmar’s Magway kills 3, injures 12

A junta airstrike in Myanmar’s central Magway region killed three people and injured 12, residents told RFA. 

Thursday’s attack destroyed a National Unity Government administrative building in Tilin township’s Laung Bo Lay village, the second deadly attack on an NUG village office this month.

“The Public Administration Office was bombed,” said a resident who requested anonymity for safety reasons.

“Three People’s Defense Force comrades died on the spot and about 12 other people were injured.”

The two men and a woman who died were members of the Yaw Revolutionary Army, based in Tilin township, according to an official from the local defense force, who also declined to be named.

He said four men and eight women were injured, including one person in charge of assisting people left homeless by the conflict in Magway region.

The official told RFA a jet fighter flew over Laung Bo Lay village at around noon Thursday, dropping three bombs.

He said the junta ordered the air strike after being tipped off about the presence of People’s Defense Force members at the office.

It cut telephone lines in Tilin and nearby Gangaw township ahead of the attack.

After the air strike, troops stationed at the Shwe Htee Hall in Tilin township and the junta-affiliated Pyu Saw Htee militia staged ground attacks on villages in Tilin, according to locals.

They said hundreds of residents from 13 villages were forced to flee.

The junta has not issued a statement on the incident and calls to the junta’s Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun by RFA went unanswered.

Myanmar’s military is increasingly resorting to air attacks as it meets fierce resistance on the ground from People’s Defense Forces and ethnic armies across the country.

On April 18, it carried out an air strike on Ma Gyi Kan village in Magway region’s Myaing township, destroying the hospital.

Thursday’s air strike comes 10 days after the junta bombed an NUG office in Sagaing region’s Pa Zi Gyi village, killing around 200 people, the deadliest air strike since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup.

The junta bombed the Pa Zi Gyi again Thursday but no one was injured in that attack as most people had fled the village.

The National Unity Government was formed shortly after the 2021 coup and serves as a parallel government, campaigning for the restoration of democracy. It also carries out local administrative work in areas not under junta control, while its People’s Defense Forces fight junta troops for control of townships across Myanmar.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.