Three days of airstrikes by junta warplanes have killed 20 civilians, including three children, in Tigyaing Township, Sagaing region, locals say.
The airstrikes were conducted amid ongoing clashes between junta troops and resistance forces that erupted last week.
A combined force of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Arakan Army (AA), All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) and the People’s Defense Force mounted an offensive to occupy Tigyaing town last Wednesday (Nov. 8).
On Sunday, a toddler and a woman were killed when a regime fighter jet bombed the Ta Khut Chaung monastery. Another junta bombing raid killed two more children aged under five, a pregnant woman and a resident of Koe Tae village on Monday.
Two men from Inn Tain village and 10 civilians from A Lae Taw village were killed by a regime aerial assault on Tuesday, the Tigyaing People’s Defense Force reported.
A Tigyaing PDF spokesperson said regime fighter jets have attacked the township more than 30 times within a week, bombing civilian targets at least 10 times. The PDF warned locals to seek shelter as soon as they hear a plane approaching.
Locals report that regime troops have also torched houses in the township, but the scale of the damage is still unknown. The junta said it still controlled Tigyaing town on Sunday, but local resistance forces rejected that claim.
“They can’t control the town. Currently, forces from both opposing sides are in the town,” the PDF spokesperson told The Irrawaddy.
Thousands of residents fled Tigyaing town last week when phone connections, internet and power were cut, locals said.
The ethnic armed alliance and PDF seized Kawlin, a district-level town 30 miles from Tigyaing, on Nov. 6. Two days later they began attacking junta troops in Tigyaing town, where fierce clashes were continuing as of Wednesday.
