At least 40 civilians, including children, have been killed in an airstrike by Myanmar’s army on a village controlled by an armed ethnic group, officials and a charity said.
The attack reportedly occurred in the Kyauk Ni Maw village on Ramree Island, a township currently held by the Arakan Army in western Rakhine state, on Wednesday.
The bombing caused a huge fire in the densely populated village that reportedly burned down at least 500 houses.
The military has not announced any attack in the area.
Myanmar has been engulfed in a civil war since the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party in a coup in February 2021.
The army has used lethal force to crack down on ethnic groups as well as peaceful demonstrations opposing junta rule, sparking conflict and armed violence in many parts of the country.
The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government.
It is a member of an alliance of armed groups that recently gained territory in the country’s northeast on the border with China.
The group captured Ramree, which is 340km northwest of Yangon, the largest city, in March last year.
The airstrike on Kyauk Ni Maw also injured more than 20 people, Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told the Associated Press.
"All the dead were civilians. Among the dead and injured are women and children," Mr Thukha said, adding that a fire sparked by the airstrike spread through the village, destroying over 500 houses.
The villagers told The Irrawaddy newspaper that the death toll was expected to rise as medicines and treatment facilities in the area were scarce.
Mr Thukha denounced the strike, which took place at 1.30pm on Wednesday, as “cowardly”. It was carried out even though there was no fighting in Ramree, he added.
“Launching deadly airstrikes on civilians is a blatant war crime,” the spokesperson said.
A local charity said the strike targeted the village’s market and put the number of injured at around 50.
The military junta has intensified airstrikes on armed groups over the last three years, leading to the displacement of thousands of people, especially the minority Rohingya Muslims.
The Arakan Army launched its offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and went on to gain control of 14 of its 17 townships as well as a strategic regional military headquarters, leaving only the state’s capital, Sittwe, and two important townships near Ramree still in military hands.
Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal army crackdown in 2017 that drove some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.
