YANGON: A Myanmar military airstrike on a monastery where civilians were gathered for a meditation retreat marking Buddhist Lent killed 14 people, two rebel fighters who witnessed the aftermath said.
The Friday (Aug 21) attack hit a monastery hall around 9am in Myaung township of central Sagaing region, killing 11 men and three women, Nway Oo Myaung, a pro-democracy rebel who helped clear bodies, said on Friday.
“Since Buddhist Lent was being marked … older people had entered the meditation centre for three months,” he said.
“Those who were killed, their ages were between 50 and 70,” he added. “It wasn’t a mistaken target, they intentionally attacked a monastery.”
A second local opposition fighter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Saturday: “Five dead people were from our village and the other nine were from other villages.”
“While we were trying to rescue people, the aircraft came to bomb a second time,” he said.
It was not immediately possible to contact the Myanmar military for comment.
Myanmar’s military sparked a civil war when it snatched power in a 2021 coup, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and detaining the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Over the past five years, more than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed across all sides as the military battles an array of pro-democracy and ethnic minority rebels.
UN investigators from the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) last week published a report accusing the military of “indiscriminate and intentional aerial attacks against civilians”.
Public buildings, most often monasteries and schools, are frequently the sites of reported airstrikes.
Myanmar’s government called the IIMM publication “one-sided allegations against Myanmar’s security forces based on unverifiable and inaccurate information”.
