Body
Airstrikes by Myanmar’s military hit a trading junction in the central Magway region on Sunday, killing more than two dozen people and wounding 20 others, a resistance group and independent online media said. The attack occurred twice Sunday morning near Pyaung village, west of Mindon township, according to Ko Myat, spokesperson for the Thayet District Battalion No. 4, which operates in Magway.
Ko Myat said two jet fighters bombed a road-side trading point where locals and truck drivers load and exchange goods. He said at least 25 people, including two women, were killed and that about 14 vehicles were burned or damaged by the explosions. He added that the group was carrying out search, rescue and cremation operations.
Myanmar’s media outlets reported the death toll between 20 and 25 and posted photos and videos they said showed the aftermath of the strike, including images of bodies and damaged vehicles. The military had not mentioned the attack in Mindon, about 320 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of Yangon, by Sunday evening.
Arakha Times, an online media outlet, reported that the bombs struck the area where traders exchanged goods between Magway and neighboring Rakhine State. It said most of the victims were traders from Rakhine, where the Arakan Army is based.
The Arakan Army is the armed wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement that seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. The group began an offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and has seized a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of the region’s 17 townships.
Since fighting escalated in Rakhine, the military has imposed severe restrictions on trade routes in the region, worsening food shortages. The Sunday strike in Magway came after a separate reported airstrike last Tuesday on a village market in Rakhine’s Ponnagyun Township that Arakha Times reported killed at least 17 people.
The airstrike described by Magway’s resistance-linked sources is part of a broader pattern of frequent aerial strikes across Myanmar that resistance groups and independent media say often result in civilian casualties. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, triggering widespread opposition and subsequent armed conflict across much of the country.