Eight children killed in Myanmar military attack on school in Chin State
Locals say the strike on the remote village of Vuilu in the mountainous region happened on Wednesday.
Myanmar is currently in the grip of a civil war with numerous armed groups fighting the military junta, which deposed an elected government in 2021.
Chin State is a stronghold of resistance against the junta.
This week, its grassroots insurgency saw ethnic Chin fighters recapture the town of Rikhawdar, on the border with India.
According to accounts posted on social media by residents of Vuilu, a hilltop community of fewer than 80 households in the south of the state, military aircraft dropped at least two bombs on them on Wednesday evening.
One destroyed a house which was being used as an improvised school, killing the eight children and three adults who were studying there. The victims included 34-year-old teacher Ha Luang and his mother, as well as his two children.
The children killed were aged between seven and 11 years old. The bombs also damaged several other houses and the village's two churches.
Southern Chin State has seen frequent clashes between the armed forces and different insurgent groups, but local people say there has been no fighting near Vuilu.
However, one villager said that the Arakan Army, an ethnic insurgent group which recently resumed its armed campaign against central government forces in neighbouring Rakhine State, had been using a route through Vuilu to bring in reinforcements and supplies.
The military government has suffered a series of defeats in attacks by opposition forces across the country over the past three weeks and is relying heavily on air power to strike back.
0 Comment