Myanmar Military Admits Striking Festival, Blames Resistance Forces for Civilian Deaths
BANGKOK, Oct 9: Myanmar’s military regime has admitted to carrying out an air assault on a religious festival in central Myanmar that witnesses say killed around 24 people, including several children, when makeshift bombs were dropped from motorized paragliders.
In a statement released Thursday, the junta’s information office claimed that anti-regime resistance fighters were to blame for the deaths, accusing them of “using civilians as human shields in their anti-government incitement campaigns.”
The incident took place Monday night at a school compound in Bon To village, Chaung-U township of the Sagaing region, a known stronghold of the armed resistance. Witnesses said two paragliders conducted multiple bombing runs, each dropping two improvised explosive devices believed to be 120 mm mortar rounds that detonated upon impact.
Eyewitnesses and local media reported that the attack struck a crowd of over 100 people who had gathered for a traditional oil lamp prayer ceremony marking the end of Buddhist Lent. Many participants were also calling for the release of political prisoners and protesting the military’s planned December election, widely criticized as a sham.
A member of a local resistance group who attended the event told reporters that 24 people were killed and at least 50 injured, including villagers, activists, and anti-junta fighters. “No one was forced to attend,” he said, dismissing the junta’s allegations that civilians were used as shields.
The United Nations condemned the assault, with a spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres saying that the “indiscriminate use of airborne munitions is unacceptable.”
Myanmar’s military, which seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021, has increasingly relied on airstrikes to suppress resistance movements. The Sagaing region has seen some of the fiercest fighting in the country’s escalating civil war.
In a separate statement, the junta announced that Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan met with Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw on Thursday to discuss humanitarian aid, peace efforts, and preparations for the controversial election. Malaysia currently chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has struggled to mediate peace in Myanmar despite multiple diplomatic initiatives.
Rights groups and humanitarian organizations have urged ASEAN and the international community to take stronger action, warning that Myanmar’s conflict is worsening into a nationwide humanitarian catastrophe.
— Voice of Malaysia News