THE military air strikes in northern Shan state killed 11 civilians and wounded 11 more, a spokeswoman for an ethnic minority armed group battling the junta said yesterday.
The junta is battling widespread armed opposition to its 2021 coup and its soldiers are accused of bloody rampages and using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities.
“They bombed at two areas in Namhkam town yesterday”, Lway Yay Oo of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) said.
The dead were five men, four women and two children, she said.
Namhkam is around 5km from the border with China’s Yunnan province, with TNLA fighters claiming control of the town following weeks of fighting last year.
Images on social media showed people sifting through rubble and carrying a young person who appeared to be wounded.
The junta spokesperson was unavailable for comments.
Since last year, the military has lost swaths of territory near the border with China in northern Shan state to an alliance of armed ethnic minority groups and “People’s Defence Forces” battling to overturn its coup.
The groups have seized a regional military command and taken control of lucrative border trade crossings, prompting rare public criticism by military supporters of the junta’s top leadership.
Earlier this week, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing warned civilians in territory held by ethnic minority armed groups to prepare for military counter-attacks, state media reported.
The junta also announced this week that it had declared the TNLA a “terrorist” organisation.
Those found supporting or contacting the TNLA and two other ethnic minority armed groups, the Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), can now face legal action.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in 2021 and launched a crackdown that sparked an armed uprising.
Conflict since the coup has forced more than 2.7 million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations. — AFP
