Thousands flee Myanmar airstrikes after rebel ambush

About 10,000 villagers in Myanmar’s Sagaing region are fleeing junta airstrikes launched after forces loyal to a shadow pro-democracy government inflicted unusually heavy casualties on a military column, residents told Radio Free Asia.

The heartland central region of Sagaing has seen some of the worst violence over the past year with pro-democracy guerrillas, largely from the majority Burman community, hounding junta forces who often respond with heavy artillery and airstrikes.

On Wednesday, air force planes bombed Maung Htaung village in Budalin township, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of the city of Mandalay, destroying buildings and wounding at least two people, a resident said.

“A bomb fell on the school and another was dropped near a Buddhist religious building. A third bomb hit a clinic,” said the resident who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. “A man and a woman were wounded.”

Residents of about 10 villages in the area were too frightened to stay in their homes and some took shelter in woods by their fields while others headed to the nearest monasteries and towns, villagers told RFA, estimating that about 10,000 people were displaced, many in urgent need of food.

The airstrikes came after anti-junta People’s Defense Force fighters ambushed an infantry column on patrol from a camp in Ku Taw village on Monday. 

Nearly half the soldiers in the patrol were killed and most of the rest were captured, according to a spokesman for one of the groups involved in the ambush called the Student Armed Force.

“There are 32 dead junta soldiers and 42 were captured,” the spokesman, identified as Maj. Okkar, told RFA. 

“The detainees are being held in accordance with the Geneva Convention, in accordance with agreement of the National Unity Government affiliates and local PDFs.” 

Four PDF members were wounded in the battle, he added. 

RFA has not been able to independently verify the account and calls to the junta’s Sagaing region spokesperson, Nyunt Win Aung, went unanswered by the time of publication.

Democracy supporters of the government ousted in the 2021 coup set up the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, to oppose military rule and organize the PDFs operating around the country. 

The guerrillas released photographs of what they said were captured junta soldiers.

The U.N. refugee agency estimated that 3.1 million people have been displaced internally by fighting in Myanmar since the military overthrew a civilian government in early 2021. Nearly 70,000 have fled to neighboring countries, the UNHCR said in a report published on Thursday.

The military has increasingly resorted to airstrikes over recent weeks, in different parts of the country including Sagaing, Shan state in the northeast and Rakhine state in the west, particularly since the junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, vowed early last month to recapture areas lost to guerrilla forces.

More than 130 people have been killed and more than 70 wounded by airstrikes from Sept. 1 to Sept. 24, across eight states and regions, RFA data shows.

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Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.