The Brotherhood Alliance is urging the Chinese government – a major supplier of weapons to Myanmar’s military – to use its substantial influence on the junta to stop it from bombing civilian targets in areas of northern Shan State and Rakhine State that have been liberated by the alliance’s ethnic armies.
Beijing has played a mediating role between the alliance and the junta, brokering a ceasefire between the two sides that paused the alliance’s Operation 1027 in early January. After the operation was launched on October 27, the alliance’s three ethnic armies seized most of northern Shan State. The following month alliance member, the Arakan Army, expanded the operation to Rakhine State and captured most of it.
The junta’s military is brazenly committing war crimes by dropping bombs on civilian targets in towns and villages even though they are far from conflict zones, the alliance said in a statement in both Burmese and Chinese on Tuesday.
The regime’s military continues to bomb markets, schools, hospitals, religious buildings, and towns and villages in Laukkai, Hseni, Kutkai and Namhsan townships in northern Shan State and the ancient city Mrauk-U in Rakhine State, the alliance said.
The junta is targeting towns that have been liberated by alliance members and no military clashes are occurring near these targets, the alliance said.
On Monday evening, regime fighter jets dropped seven 500-pound bombs on civilian targets in two residential wards and a market in Kutkai town, which is under the control of alliance member the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).
The airstrikes killed at least six civilians, wounded 10 more and destroyed 402 shops in the town’s market as well as 10 homes, the TNLA said.
Another alliance member, the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), said last Friday that the junta launched a series of airstrikes on a hotel, school, hospital and market in Laukkai, the capital of Kokang Self-Administrative Zone and Hseni Town in northern Shan State. Both are under the control of the MNDAA.
The airstrikes on civilian targets coincided with the junta’s heavy losses in its battle with the alliance in Nawnghkio and Lashio, the capital of northern Shan State. The junta’s airstrikes killed 14 civilians and injured 23 more, the MNDAA said.
Intentional attacks on civilian areas – including villages, towns, schools, healthcare centers and religious buildings – are war crimes under international law.
Since the Feb. 1, 2021, the regime has committed thousands of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including incinerating villages and towns, massacres and sexual violence.
The response by the international community, especially United Nations (UN) and ASEAN, has been feeble.
Since the coup, the junta has killed 5,480 civilians and detained 27,156 people, including elected government leaders, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors murders and arrests. The association says its numbers are likely conservative because it only counts the killings and arrests it has verified.
Another organization that monitors the regime’s crimes, Data for Myanmar, says 95,450 civilian homes have been incinerated in junta arson attacks across the country since the coup.
