Myanmar’s civilian National Unity Government (NUG) has called for international coordination to facilitate legal action and more aggressive economic sanctions against the military junta in response to its escalation of atrocities against children in resistance strongholds.
NUG spokesperson U Kyaw Zaw pledged at a press conference Wednesday that the organization would take action to stop the junta’s targeted attacks on civilians, including children. He was speaking a week after shelling by the junta struck a monastic school in Sagaing’s Wuntho Township, injuring at least 19 primary students and a teacher.
Most of the students wounded by the shelling were aged 5 to 8, the NUG stated.
“It was like a living hell. Covered in blood, children rushed to us,” a teacher who witnessed the incident recalled.
The NUG said nearly 500 children have lost their lives while around 120 schools have been destroyed in junta shelling strikes, air strikes and infantry raids since the 2021 military coup.
Educational facilities and children are frequently hit in attacks in resistance-held areas, as the junta, reeling from heavy losses to its ground troops, relies on heavy weapons and air strikes to snuff out resistance forces.
In early September, a school in Karen State was hit in junta air strikes, killing a teacher and three children and wounding another teacher and five children.
Schools and displacement camps in eastern Kayah State are frequently hit by junta bombardments and air strikes, said a teacher at a camp in western Demoso Township.
The Progressive Karenni People’s Defense Force (PKPF), which monitors junta atrocities, said at least 13 children were killed in Kayah State between February 2021 and June 2023.
Another deadly air strike killed at least 157 people including 30 children when a junta jet fighter dropped two 500-pound bombs on a housewarming ceremony for the NUG’s Public Administrative Team in Pazigyi Village in Sagaing’s Kantbalu Township on April 11.
Last year, a regime air strike and ground attack killed seven children, with the youngest aged 7, in Let Yet Kone village, Sagaing Region.
Sagaing Region has witnessed the highest number of child deaths since the 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors regime atrocities.
