Explosions shocked David Htan and his family as they were preparing to go to church in Kanan, a village on the Indian border in Tamu Township, Sagaing Region.
A junta fighter jet’s twice bombs hit between the village church and a school last Sunday morning, killing 17 people, including nine children, and injuring at least 19 others. The church, two school buildings and 10 houses were destroyed.
Kanan is across a river from Khampat town, which has been under the control of the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) since November.
The largely ethnically Chin villagers are devout Christians and were attending church when the bombs fell.
“We hid in our house when we heard the fighter jets. It was like the end of the world,” Htan told a press conference held by the NUG on Friday.
Mothers gripped toddlers, weeping and crying among bodies scattered around the church grounds, witnesses told the media.
January 7. / The Irrawaddy
Bodies were left without heads and limbs and their bellies and intestines were falling out. According to the NUG, the youngest victim was five.
Ma Radi Ohm of a mobile medical team was at a tea shop near the church during the attack. She saw two bombs falling and reached the church during a second attack.
“It was quiet after bombardment. Villagers were shocked and gazed at the sky. When I asked who was hurt they began to recover,” said Ma Radi Ohm.
A bare-breasted woman was holding her longyi, shouting her children’s names. Out of a family of four, the father and one son were killed and the mother and other son were injured, looking for the other two.
“A seriously injured 13-year-old was crying out for someone to treat her little brother. I knew he was in a desperate condition but I pretended to treat him. I couldn’t help weeping,” she said.
The 11-year-old died soon after.
The junta blocked access to the hospital in Kale.
The regime denied responsibility for the attack, claiming that no planes were flying in the area on Sunday morning, saying the reports were fake news spread by the media to destabilize the country.
U Kyaw Zaw, the NUG’s spokesman, said the junta is targeting civilians as it loses battles on every frontline across the country amid major resistance offensives.
In the first week of January, more than 57 civilians, including 18 children, were killed across Myanmar, according to The Irrawaddy.
The junta has been using 120mm artillery, multiple rocket launchers and airstrikes to attack civilian targets, U Kyaw Zaw said.
He added that the NUG is collecting evidence of war crimes committed by the junta since the February 2021 coup and will submit documents to the International Court Of Justice and International Criminal Court.
January 7. / The Irrawaddy
In collaboration with international organizations, the NUG is trying to distribute early warning technology for airstrikes and to impose global sanctions on aviation fuel to the junta, U Kyaw Zaw told the press conference.
The Irrawaddy has reported that airstrikes and shelling of civilian targets, including schools, hospitals and residential areas, have stepped up since Operation 1027 was launched in northern Shan State on October 27.
This year Sagaing Region has recorded the most deaths with 32 civilians killed and 50 injured by junta airstrikes. The Kanan village case is the worst single attack.
NUG human rights minister U Aung Myo Min told The Irrawaddy: “The regime’s indiscriminate airstrikes, shelling and raids on villages and other civilian targets across the country have killed large numbers of non-combatants, including many children, since military chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power from the elected civilian government on February 1, 2021.”
According to the NUG, the junta committed nine mass killings in 2021 causing 147 civilian deaths, followed by 44 cases in 2022 killing 515 civilians. In 2023 the number of mass killings increased to 86, leaving 1,342 civilians dead.
The junta has launched 583 airstrikes, causing 897 deaths and destroying 76 religious buildings and 52 schools, according to the NUG.
U Kyaw Zaw said the regime is attacking civilians far from conflict zones.
“To prevent similar massacres, we must root out the military regime as soon as possible,” he told the media.
