Myanmar junta forces burned down a Japan-Myanmar Friendship Hospital on Tuesday during a raid on a village in Myaing Township, Magwe Region.
Military regime troops killed a 15-year-old boy during the raid and abducted 19 people including medics from the Japan-funded hospital, according to locals and resistance groups.
At 11am on Tuesday, around 80 junta troops dropped by two transport helicopters raided Magyi Kan village in the north of Myaing Township, while a Russian-made MI-35 helicopter gunship attacked the village and the Japan-Myanmar Friendship Hospital, said resistance groups and media outlet We Love Myaing, which monitors regime atrocities in the township.
“The boy was killed when soldiers cut his throat. They [junta troops] also abducted 19 people including the hospital’s doctor and a female medic when they left the village,” said a representative of resistance group Myaing Villages Revolution Front (MVRF) who witnessed the aftermath of the attack.
“The hospital building donated by Japan was totally destroyed,” added the MVRF representative.
A Magyi Kan villager said that the regime troops mainly targeted the hospital during the raid and initially detained over 100 people, including hospital patients. The soldiers also stole over 100 cellphones from the villagers, said the MVRF.
Four homes were torched by regime forces during the raid, along with two vehicles and a number of motorbikes.
In a statement on Tuesday, the junta said that it raided Magyi Kan and neighboring Kan Gyi Village after a tip-off about a People’s Defense Force (PDF) base in the area.
The regime made no mention of the airstrikes and arson attacks on the village, but said that 30 people were detained, 20 of them women, under suspicion of having links to resistance groups.
The junta claimed to have seized a large quantity of explosives and PDF uniforms from the hospital, along with three vehicles and five motorbikes.
An improvised grenade, a vehicle and 15 motorbikes were seized from a school during the subsequent raid on Kan Gyi Village.
Locals told The Irrawaddy that regime forces were airlifted out of the area on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, on April 8 and 9, a Myanmar military column burned down nearly 50 houses during raids on two villages in the south of Myaing Township, as well as abducting and killing a 37-year-old villager with mental health problems.
