Myanmar’s military has launched some of its heaviest aerial campaigns since the 2021 coup in recent months, killing at least 26 people in a series of attacks in early September.
The military, which has repeatedly been accused of indiscriminate aerial bombardments, launched at least seven airstrikes in four days between 3 and 6 September. According to Unicef, 10 children were among those killed. A pregnant woman also lost her unborn child.
A camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Pekhon township, southern Shan state, was one of the seven locations targeted. Daw Ohn Mar Khaing, a volunteer teacher at the camp, known as “Bangkok”, told the Guardian it was struck despite there being no fighting in the township, or opposition fighters nearby.
“We only have helpless women and children, who were displaced from the war in their villages,” she said.
At about 9.45pm on 5 September, a fighter jet flew low over the camp, prompting teachers to rush to warn residents, including children, to take cover. The jet returned and dropped two bombs; they landed 100 metres from Daw Ohn Mar Khaing’s shelter.
When she emerged from her shelter, which was covered in earth, she saw some shelters toppled over. A bomb had landed on a bunker where a family of seven people was sheltering. It killed 16-year-old Wai Wai Aung, her mother, five younger siblings and two other residents of the camp, including a two-year-old boy.
Daw Ohn Mar Khaing and other camp residents pulled out the dead bodies and wounded people and took them to hospital. “It was chaos,” she said. “There were dead bodies without heads and hands.”
It was the second time the military had hit the camp’s shelters this year, residents said, adding that there had also been multiple airstrikes in the surrounding area. In previous years, there had been far fewer such attacks in the rainy season, which runs from June to October.
The same escalation of aerial attacks has been recorded nationally. Data provided by Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, a local rights group monitoring war crimes, showed there were at least 350 aerial attacks across Myanmar in August – more than any other month since the coup.
The junta, which has suffered continual and humiliating defeats, and lost swathes of territory along its border areas, has increasingly relied on air attacks in its attempts to crush resistance to its rule.
It is fighting on various fronts against a range of opposition groups, including people’s defence forces, which were formed by civilians to oppose the coup, as well as more established armed groups of ethnic minorities that have long fought for independence.
The constant fear of aerial bombardments has left communities traumatised. Daw Ohn Mar Khaing said her pupils were frightened by any noise, even a revving car engine or the sound of generators. “They are always prepared to hide in the bunker whenever they hear something loud,” she said.
This month, a video showing a toddler waving his slipper at the sky, in an effort to shoo away a fighter jet, went viral on social media. For many, the scene encapsulated the trauma inflicted upon Myanmar’s children.
Victims of the attack at the camp on 5 September were rushed to clinics in neighbouring Karenni state for treatment. Dr Tracy*, a 26-year-old doctor who works underground to treat victims of military atrocities, told the Guardian she had operated many times that day, including on a two-year-old boy, who did not survive, and two women. Four other children were killed, while a pregnant woman lost her unborn child.
“The pregnant woman had severe injuries. A piece from the missile penetrated her belly, hit the head of the foetus, and that killed it,” Tracy said.
“On the same day, I had to remove the uterus and foetus from a pregnant woman full of blood. A two-year-old boy died while I was doing CPR [resuscitation]. I couldn’t cry, but I wish death for Min Aung Hlaing,” she said, referring to the widely loathed junta chief.
Tracy said she would have broken down when faced with such tragedies in the early days of the coup. Today, after more than three years of conflict and suffering, she had become hardened to atrocities. News of the death of Myanmar army soldiers made her happy, she said.
Many local people are suffering from trauma and PTSD, she said. “Regardless of how strong they are, everyone is suffering from those mental problems.”
* Name has been changed
