ASEAN Beat | Security | Southeast Asia

At Least 8 Dead in Myanmar Air Strikes, Rakhine Rebel Group Claims

In a desperate bid to claw back territory from the Arakan Army, the Myanmar military has ramped up its use of air power.

Myanmar’s military has launched airstrikes on camps for internally displaced people in Rakhine State, killing at least eight people and leaving more injured, according to a local ethnic rebel organization.

The Arakan Army (AA), a Rakhine nationalist group that controls much of the state in western Myanmar, said yesterday that a Y12 aircraft bombed a displacement shelter and a nearby village in AA-controlled Ponnagyun Township, The Irrawaddy reported. One civilian was killed and two injured in the attack, it added.

This came after six were killed in an air attack on a separate displacement camp in the township on Sunday night, the AA claimed. Several more were injured in the attack, which also destroyed buildings.

The two attacks were also confirmed by ​the Ponnagyun Youth Association, which told Reuters that everyone killed or injured was a “displaced civilian.”

“Attacking these civilian targets with aircraft was a deliberative move,” Wai Hun Aung, a prominent Rakhine writer and aid worker, told The Irrawaddy, adding that the camps were located far from the active combat zone in Rakhine State.

This week’s airstrikes are just the latest to take place in Rakhine, as the Myanmar armed forces attempt to claw back territory from the AA. Much of the state has fallen under the control of the AA since late 2023, when the group and its allies launched an offensive known as Operation 1027. The military has only a few precarious footholds in the state now, including the state capital Sittwe and several other coastal areas. As it has done in other parts of Myanmar, it has begun to lean heavily on its air power to punish civilian populations and stave off further losses.

The attacks came........

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