A Myanmar military fighter jet bombed detention centers holding family members of regime troops captured by the Arakan Army (AA), killing 28 women and children on Saturday.
The AA said the fighter jet conducted three airstrikes on the camps near Yann Chaung village in Mrauk-U Township, Rakhine State.
The bombing killed 19 women and nine children, aged between two and 16, and injured another 25, including 11 children, the ethnic army said.
The AA condemned the bombing as a war crime, claiming the regime was conducting daily arbitrary attacks on civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, markets, religious sites and IDP camps. The ethnic army also warned Rakhine residents to be on the alert for an escalation of junta airstrikes.
On January 11, regime warplanes dropped 15 bombs on a crowded market and neighborhoods in the AA-controlled town of Kyauktaw in Rakhine, killing around a dozen residents and destroying houses.
On January 8, at least 26 people were killed and 15 injured when junta warplanes bombed Kyauk Ni Maw village in AA-controlled Ramree Township, the rebel group said. The bombing also destroyed nearly 400 houses in the village.
Saturday’s attack is not the first time that Myanmar junta warplanes have killed their own detained troops, according to reports.
In September, junta jet fighters bombed a temporary AA detention center at the seized Border Guard Police Battalion No. 2 base in Maungdaw near the Bangladesh border, killing 50 people including regime personnel.
The AA is a member of the ethnic Brotherhood Alliance, which has seized most of northern Shan State including the capital Lashio since launching its anti-regime Operation 1027 in October 2023.
The AA expanded the operation to its home state of Rakhine in November last year and has since seized 14 of its 17 townships, as well as Paletwa Township in neighboring Chin State.
Fighting is now being reported in neighboring Ayeyarwady Region as AA troops push south into Pathein Township, seizing junta bases near the beach town of Shwe Thaung Yan.
