An airstrike conducted by Myanmar’s military in the vicinity of a market located in an area controlled by a prominent rebel group resulted in the deaths of at least 33 individuals and left 36 others injured on Monday, as reported by the group and a rescue official. This incident in western Rakhine state marks the most recent in a series of deadly airstrikes targeting pro-democracy resistance factions and ethnic armed organizations nationwide.
Since the military takeover from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government on February 1, 2021, Myanmar has been embroiled in unrest, prompting widespread resistance. Following the use of lethal force by security forces to suppress peaceful demonstrations, many opponents of the military regime resorted to armed resistance, leading to widespread conflict across various regions of the country.
The attack on Monday occurred in Kyauktaw township, approximately 340 kilometers west of Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar. The Arakan Army, a potent ethnic armed group situated in Rakhine and in control of Kyauktaw, disclosed that a fighter jet dropped two bombs close to a local market at noon, resulting in the deaths of 33 people, including vendors, shoppers, and passersby.
Wai Hun Aung, a senior rescue official in Rakhine, corroborated the casualties, mentioning rescue personnel at the site. He noted that the market served as the primary wholesale hub in the region, attracting traders and buyers from all corners of the state.
“This represents one of the most severe airstrikes in Rakhine,” he remarked.
Images and footage circulated on social media displayed buildings engulfed in flames, vehicles damaged, and sections of a nearby bridge destroyed in the aftermath of the attack.
The military refrained from immediate comments on the assault, reiterating its commitment to targeting only legitimate military objectives and accusing resistance factions of engaging in terrorist activities.
The Arakan Army stands as the well-equipped and well-trained military branch of a movement advocating for Rakhine’s ethnic minority autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. The group initiated an offensive in Rakhine back in November 2023, seizing a strategically vital regional military base and controlling 14 out of the state’s 17 townships since then.
As hostilities escalated in Rakhine, the military enforced stringent restrictions on trade routes, exacerbating food scarcity in the region.
In a separate incident in December, a military airstrike on a hospital in Rakhine’s Mrauk-U township resulted in the deaths of at least 34 individuals and left 80 others wounded.
Rakhine has also witnessed clashes between the military and insurgents, leading to a mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh and other destinations since 2017. Myanmar, previously known as Burma, does not recognize the Rohingya as one of its 135 official ethnic minorities, as countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia pursue efforts to repatriate some of the displaced individuals.
