Sixteen children were among the 121 civilians who lost their lives to the junta’s killing campaign last month, raising the post-coup total to 4,957, according to data released by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners that included April.
The association said that its count of the number of civilians killed by the junta and its allies since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup did not include those it had not yet verified, explaining that it has documented but not verified about 1,750 more civilian deaths.
The association said on Wednesday that 33 female and 88 male civilians were killed in April by the junta and its allies. They included 16 children under the ages of 18 and 15 elderly people. Forty-two were killed by airstrikes.
Resistance stronghold Sagaing Region continued to suffer the worst, with 38 civilians killed, the association’s data showed.
On April 22, three children and an elderly man were killed when a junta military unit shelled Pyin Taw Oo during an attack on the village in the region’s Kale Township.
Two more residents of the village were killed the next day when regime forces shelled a group of people returning from the victims’ funerals.
The Kale People’s Strike Committee reported that 97 civilians were killed by junta forces in Kale Township between February 1 and April 25.
Junta military fighter jets also bombed Wun Ma Thuu Hospital in Chin State’s Mindat Township last Thursday night, killing four patients and a medical attendant, and injuring about 15 more people.
The globally prohibited target was bombed even though there were no clashes with resistance groups in the area, Chin Defense Forces (Mindat) told The Irrawaddy. The National Unity Government said the junta bombed 35 hospitals and clinics between late February and late April.
The junta’s military is suffering heavy defeats and losing large swathes of territory in daily attacks by People’s Defense Forces and ethnic armies across the country. It is responding by bombing civilians.
It is also continuing to lock up those who protest against it at an unprecedented rate. According to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, 38 more people were detained in April. They included two six-year-old children. Regime courts also sentenced 49 detainees to prison sentences of more than 10 years in April.
The association has verified that 26,588 people, including elected government leaders, have been arrested and detained since the coup. The real number is likely far higher because it does not include political prisoners who have yet to be verified.
