Junta airstrike kills 4 civilians in Myanmar’s Sagaing region

Four civilians, including an eight-month-old child, were killed and at least 10 injured when a junta jet bombed a township in Myanmar’s Sagaing region on Friday morning, residents told RFA.

The jet bombed a monastery in Sagaing township’s Ta Laing village, where displaced people were sheltering, according to a local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals.

“At around four in the morning, the jet hovered and dropped a bomb as a junta column entered Ta Laing village, hitting the monastery gate and causing casualties,” said the local.

“Junta troops raided the village in the early morning and civilians were also arrested but there was no fighting.”

The local said around 80 troops entered the village after the airstrike and detained around 20 villagers, who were still being held as of Friday afternoon local time.

A local People’s Defense Force member, who requested anonymity, told RFA that troops fired rocket-propelled grenades at the monastery when they withdrew on Friday afternoon.

“On the way out of Ta Laing village, the junta troops opened fire with two shots with shoulder-fired weapons toward the monastery,” he said, adding that a battle with his anti-junta militia was almost certain to happen.

Locals said more than 6,000 civilians from villages in Sagaing township fled their homes ahead of the junta raid.

Calls to the junta’s spokesperson for Sagaing region, Saw Naing, went unanswered.

Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said on July 31 that the junta is staking out territory and declaring martial law in parts of the country in order to restore peace and stability.

The junta has extended the state of emergency for another six months, further pushing back plans to hold national elections to replace the military regime that has run Myanmar since a February 2021 coup..

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.