After five days of fighting, resistance forces are poised to capture Sagaing Region’s Kani town and the junta is responding by bombing it, a resident of the town said on Thursday.
“The military’s aircraft are attacking us nonstop. Even now, they are flying overhead and bombing the town. We need to hide,” he said.
Allied resistance groups began attacking the town on Saturday. It is located in southwest Sagaing Region about 35 miles from the region’s capital, Monywa, where the Northwest Regional Military Headquarters is based.
A resistance fighter said the resistance groups are operating under the Yin Mar Bin district command and that they had control of about 80 percent of the town as of Thursday afternoon.
The junta responded to the resistance attacks with airstrikes. Residents of the town say they cannot count the number of bombs that have been dropped by fighter jets since resistance forces got the upper hand on Tuesday night.
On the first day of the offensive, the military regime conducted more than 20 airstrikes on the town using fighter jets and MI-35 attack helicopters, the resistance source said.
The rain of bombs from jets and bullets from helicopter machine guns continued to target residential areas on Thursday as most residents of the town remained trapped in their homes, the source added.
Resistance groups have evacuated more than 800 civilians to three different locations where food is being distributed and accommodations are available, but the resistance source said they could not even estimate how many of the town’s residents remain trapped in it.
The junta sent in reinforcements by helicopter twice on Thursday morning. They were members of an allied Phyu Saw Htee militia from In-ma-htee village of Pale township.
As of Thursday afternoon, two resistance fighters had been killed and seven were injured, but the number of civilian casualties was unknown. The number of homes and other buildings destroyed by the airstrikes was also unknown.
Villages near the town were targeted by junta airstrikes on Tuesday.
In Min Kon village, about a mile from Kani town, a 70-year-old man was killed and four other residents were injured in airstrikes on Tuesday. On the same day, more than 10 homes were set aflame by airstrikes in Tazechaung village, local media reported.
Sagaing region is a resistance stronghold. Joint resistance forces seized four towns in the region late last year: Shwe Pyi Aye, Maw Luu, Khampat and Kawlin. Kawlin, however, was retaken by the junta troops on Feb. 12 after 10 days of intense fighting.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 4,646 civilians were killed and 26,222 arrested from the Feb. 1, 2021 coup to March 6.
