When junta troops lose battles they set their sights on civilians, residents of Rakhine State were warned on Wednesday after the regime’s military unleashed a wave of bombing on ethnic villages and residential areas of towns in the western state.
Civilians in Rakhine State should avoid gathering in large groups because this creates targets for junta fighter jets, attack helicopters, gunboats and heavy artillery, the United League of Arakan (ULA) said.
The junta does not distinguish between Rakhine civilians and soldiers in the Arakan Army, the ULA said, referring to its armed wing.
The Brotherhood Alliance, which includes the Arakan Army, on Wednesday called junta troops cowards for attacking civilians because they lost to the Arakan Army on battlefields.
The military regime is not even trying to hide the fact that it is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ULA said. These include arson attacks on villages as well as bombing of villages, towns and heritage sites in Rakhine State.
These crimes are a direct response to military defeats as well as political and diplomatic failures, the ULA said.
An entire village in Minbya Township no longer exists, the Brotherhood Alliance said. It was wiped off the map by bombs from a junta gunboat on Wednesday.
On Wednesday morning, the Myanmar military’s Light Infantry Battalion 376 shelled villages near its base in Kyauktaw Township even though there was no fighting in the area, Rakhine media and the Brotherhood Alliance reported. It hit the civilian targets with 120 mm high explosive mortar bombs, killing a 52-year-old man in Thayet Tapin village, reports said.
Later that day, at about 5 p.m., a junta attack helicopter bombed villages in Kyauktaw Township, destroying homes and a Buddhist monastery in Link Sin village. Six people displaced by the war were also killed, including a 70-year-old man from Kyauktaw Town and two children.
They moved to Link Sin village in the township because they thought it was safer, residents said. Fifteen more civilians were injured by shells from the attack helicopter.
A video released by Rakhine media outlet The Western News, shows residents trying to retrieve the body of a woman killed on a village road while others race to extinguish a fire at a home nearby. The video also shows a man mourning the bloodied body of a boy, presumably his son, who lies lifeless on a dirt road.
Wednesday’s attacks on civilians came one day after the Arkan Army captured Light Infantry Battalion 539, which was based in Kyauktaw Township. About 300 junta troops, including battalion commanders, and their family members surrendered to the Arakan Army after six days of fighting. On Sunday, Arakan Army troops also seized the headquarters of the junta’s Infantry Battalion 377 in the township.
Clashes also broke out in Rathedaung Township on Tuesday morning as AA troops attacked three infantry battalions there, residents said.
In response, junta troops shelled residential areas of Rathedaung town and nearby villages until the next morning, while a fighter jet was also called in to bomb civilians, the Brotherhood Alliance said.
It also said that the junta used two fighter jets and an MI 35 helicopter gunship to attack Minbya town on Wednesday morning.
An entire village in Minbya Township no longer exists, the Brotherhood Alliance said. It was wiped off the map by bombs from a junta gunboat.
On Tuesday, a junta unit taking a position on an island in Sittwe township announced its presence by shelling villages.
On Monday, about 50 regime forces raided Kan Taw Village near Sittwe, Rakhine State’s capital. They shot two residents dead before incinerating the entire village.
On the same day, a junta fighter jet bombed Kyi Lay village in Paletwa Township, which borders Chin State. A five-year-old child and three adult men were killed.
The junta claims that the shelling of civilians is the result of poor aim by the Arakan Army.
The junta also says the media is destroying Myanmar because it distributes fake news to support resistance forces and armed ethnic groups, which it calls “terrorists.”
Heavy fighting resumed in northern Rakhine State on Nov. 13 last year after the Arakan Army expanded the Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027 to the state. It has seized Paletwa town in neighboring Chin State and more than 160 military junta bases and outposts across northern Rakhine and Paletwa Township.
More than 600 defeated junta troops have fled to India and several hundred more have surrendered to the Arakan Army.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 37 civilians were killed and 121 injured by artillery fire during clashes between the Arakan Army and regime troops in Rakhine State between Nov. 13 and Dec. 11 last year. An additional 111,000 people have been displaced since Nov. 13, the office said.
These numbers likely underestimate the scale of atrocities in one of Myanmar’s most impoverished but resource-rich states, local officials say.
