BANGKOK (AP) — Funerals have been held in Myanmar for almost two dozen students and teachers alleged to have been killed in an airstrike on a local school by a ruling military jet fighter.
Local resistance groups and independent media said Tuesday that 20 pupils and 2 teachers died in the attack on Ohe Htein Twin village, in Sagaing region’s township of Tabayin, also known as Depayin. Their reports said that as many as 100 people were wounded.
The dead students were from grades 2 to 11, with the youngest seven years old, according to the shadow National Unity Government, which serves as an umbrella organization for opponents of military rule
A member of a local resistance group fighting against army rule told The Associated Press that another student, who was severely injured in Monday's bombing, died Tuesday afternoon while undergoing medical treatment.
The resistance fighter, who requested that neither he nor his group be named for fear of arrest by the military, said the incident occurred while more than 100 students were studying in a school in the village, which has about 500 houses. He denied that any resistance fighters were stationed in the village that was attacked.
Sagaing has been a stronghold of to army rule in Myanmar, and the military in recent years has stepped up in their fight against resistance forces, which include the armed People’s Defense Forces. The resistance has no effective defense against air attacks, which many reports say hit non-military targets.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army’s 2021 takeover ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, which led to nationwide peaceful protests that escalated into a durable armed resistance denying the army control of much of the country.
A report Tuesday in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper denied the army had carried out the airstrike, saying malicious media outlets were intentionally spreading fake information. The military's tight control over the media and the relative remoteness of many such incidents makes independent confirmation of what occurred difficult.
The bodies of 18 of the victims, most of them under the age of 10 were buried Monday in two village cemeteries after hastily arranged funerals just a few hours after the bombing incident, the unidentified resistance fighter said.
About 100 wounded people, both students and teachers, were being treated in regional hospitals as the village’s clinic lacked adequate facilities. At least two victims have had to have limbs amputated, he added.
A member of another resistance group, the White Depeyin People’s Defence Force, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that the funerals concluded on Tuesday.
A report on Tuesday by the Human Rights Ministry of the National Unity Government said the jet fighter took off from an airbase in Meiktila township in the central region of Mandalay on Monday morning and deliberately attacked the school with two cluster bombs while students were preparing to sit for their exams.
“All individuals implicated in the commanding, execution, or collusion of deliberate air strikes against innocent children, students, and educators shall be subject to stringent judicial repercussions,†the group said in a separate statement. “No avenue for impunity shall be permitted. Every responsible party will be pursued without respite, unequivocally identified, held accountable and subjected to stringent punitive measures under the full force of the law.â€
The military has increasingly used airstrikes to counter the widespread armed struggle against its rule. More than 6,600 civilians are estimated to have been killed by security forces since the army's 2021 takeover, according to figures compiled by nongovernmental organizations.
Airstrikes in Myanmar garnered increased attention recently when numerous reports deemed credible by the and human rights groups said that they continued to be carried out in the wake of Myanmar’s devastating March 28 earthquake, after which the military and resistance groups to facilitate relief efforts.
“We are horrified by reports of a Myanmar regime airstrike on a school in an earthquake-affected area at a time when a ceasefire has been announced. Schools are meant to be a place of safety and opportunity, not collateral in a conflict," Britain's Minister for Indo-Pacific Catherine West said in a statement.
“We repeat our call to all parties, particularly the Myanmar military, to refrain from airstrikes, safeguard civilians, and protect civilian infrastructure.â€
