Twenty-three Rohingya residents were killed and 33 injured in an unprovoked bombing raid by the military regime on Monday in Minbya Township in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, according to residents.
A junta warplane dropped two bombs early Monday morning on Thardar Village, residents said. A faith leader and his wife, and a number of children, were among the 23 victims killed.
The Arakan Army (AA) is providing treatment for 18 people injured in the bombing raid. Fifteen others who sustained minor injuries were receiving treatment at rural clinics, a resident told The Irrawaddy.
“One of them is in a critical situation. The rest are still OK. People are now filled with panic,” said a resident.
Thardar Village is home to over 2,000 Rohingya people in 300 houses. There are also displaced people from nearby villages taking shelter there.
Rohingya activist Nay San Lwin said: “The Myanmar military has never been punished in the country for the crimes it has committed. It continues to commit crimes with impunity against not only Rohingya but all the other ethnic people. Those crimes will only end when its impunity ends.”
The regime has carried out frequent air and artillery strikes on Minbya town since the AA seized it on Feb. 6.
Junta battalions based in Sittwe shelled Minbya town at around 11 p.m. on March 8, with shells landing on two villages.
Classrooms were damaged at a public school in Minbya when a junta jet fighter bombed the town on March 16. Some civilians who returned to their homes to fetch belongings were killed and injured in another bombing raid on March 12.
The regime is also reportedly conducting air and artillery attacks on other towns seized by the AA. Pauktaw, Ponnagyun, Mrauk-U, Minbya, Myebon, Ramree, Rathedaung, Kyauktaw and Taung Pyo Letwe towns, as well as Paletwa town in neighboring Chin State have fallen to the AA since the armed group launched an offensive against the regime in November last year.
