An infant and his 23-year-old mother were among those killed during a nighttime airstrike on a village monastery in southern Sagaing Region on Thursday, residents of Ta Laing Village said.
One of two bombs dropped by a junta fighter jet at 2.15am on Thursday hit Ta Laing monastery where many of the residents of the village in Sagaing Township were sleeping. Besides the mother and her eight-month-old boy, a 65-year-old woman was killed by the bomb, 15 other people were injured while sleeping inside the monastery, and an unknown number of livestock were killed, residents said.
No clashes between junta troops and resistance forces had occurred in the area prior to the airstrike, they said.
Residents were taking refuge in the village because regime ground troops had entered nearby villages via the Ayeyarwady River, they said.
“Residents fled [to the monastery] as regime troops were approaching villages by river. Troops raided Ta Laing Village [after the airstrike], but the details are unknown,” a resident of Sagaing Township told The Irrawaddy.
The Sagaing District Medical Team said some residents of the village were arrested by the junta ground troops who arrived after the airstrike.
Residents of Sint Kaing, Oak Pho and Chaung Oo villages have fled as regime ground troops approach.
Regime troops raided Ta Laing Village before. On July 2, they killed five local resistance fighters and torched more than 100 homes.
Junta troops have been attacking resistance strongholds by air, on the ground and from rivers. Widespread indiscriminate airstrikes in resistance areas as well as massacres have been documented in great detail. In April, 157 civilians including 42 children in Kantbalu Township’s Pazigyi village were killed by a junta airstrike.
