Around 70 people, mostly regime detainees, were killed in Rakhine State on Sunday and Monday in junta airstrikes on Arakan Army (AA) detention centers in Pauktaw and Maungdaw townships, according to the armed group.
The AA said two junta fighter jets attacked a Border Guard Police headquarters on Monday morning which it seized in July in Maungdaw town near Bangladesh border.
The base was being used as a detention center for regime forces, military informants and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) militants who were detained by the AA in Maungdaw.
ARSA and the RSO are fighting alongside the regime in northern Rakhine State.
Over 50 detainees were killed during the airstrikes and many others were injured and several injured detainees were in a critical condition, according to the AA.
An AA video shows four injured people trapped in a collapsed building.
Junta airstrikes also targeted a United Nations building in Maungdaw Township on Sunday night and another AA detention center in Pauktaw Township near the state capital, Sittwe, the AA said.
A clinic treating regime troops and others detained by the AA was hit, killing 17 people, including seven regime personnel, medical staff and other civilians.
Ten people were also injured, the group said.
Regime bases in Sittwe shelled residential areas of Pauktaw town last Friday, destroying houses, the armed group said.
An increase in regime airstrikes and shelling has been reported since last week when junta boss Min Aung Hlaing promised counterattacks to retake territory seized across the country.
He announced the fightback to regime personnel in the southern Shan State capital, Taunggyi, last Tuesday.
Last week, junta airstrikes on resistance territory killed at least 40 civilians, including around 12 children.
Anti-regime groups condemned the attacks as war crimes and reiterated demands for the UN, European Union and ASEAN to ban exports of aviation fuel and ammunition to the military and to take steps to protect Myanmar’s civilians.
