Irrawaddy-Oct 28
Myanmar’s junta forces have committed another war crime, deploying three fighter-jets to bomb a crowd in the north, resulting in heavy casualties and nationwide mourning. Nearly 80 people were killed and many others seriously injured by the junta airstrike at a village near Hpakant Township, Kachin State, where a music concert was being held to mark the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)’s 62nd anniversary. Among those killed were prominent Kachin musicians and officials of the KIO’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The Kachin concert airstrike was the deadliest attack perpetrated by the junta since last year’s coup. The slaughter took place five weeks after the junta’s Let Yat kone village airstrike in central Myanmar killed 13 civilians including seven children. It also came four days after the regime’s deadly airborne raid on a village in Yinmabin Township, Sagaing Region. On October 19, two fighter-jets and four helicopters suddenly appeared over Yin Paung Taing village. As the fighter jets fired on the village, the helicopters dropped soldiers at its perimeter. Two days later, junta troops deployed in Yin Paung Taing killed about a dozen People’s Defense Force (PDF) members and a civilian resident. Since late March last year, the junta has been launching airstrikes across the country to crush local resistance forces it designates as “terrorist” groups. The aerial bombing campaign is concentrated on the resistance strongholds of Sagaing and Magway regions and Kayah, Karen and Chin states. The regime has used helicopters, jet-fighters and surveillance drones to indiscriminately attack civilians in those areas, brazenly violating the Geneva Convention and international law. Both prohibit aerial attacks that terrorize civilians, kill or injure non-combatants and destroy or damage private property. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/losing-the-ground-battle-myanmar-junta-takes-to-the-skies.html
