Junta forces bombed a school in central Myanmar on Monday, killing at least 20 students, local sources and the country’s exiled civilian administration told Radio Free Asia.
A fighter jet fired at Sagaing region’s Oe Htein Kwin village in Tabayin township, which is under rebel control.
The airstrike killed 20 students and two teachers, and more than 20 others were wounded, according to local sources who requested anonymity for safety reasons.
Earlier, Nay Bone Latt, a spokesperson for the prime minister’s office of the shadow National Unity Government said that 17 students had died but that the death toll could rise.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on children by the military since it seized power in a coup against an elected government four years ago, triggering widespread civil conflict.
The airstrike came despite the junta declaring a ceasefire until May 31 after a March 28 earthquake that killed more than 3,800 people, mostly in Sagaing and Mandalay regions. Airstrikes and heavy artillery attacks have continued, killing more than 200 people.
Nay Bone Latt claimed that the children in school were intentionally targeted in the bombing. “The junta often uses propaganda to say after deliberately attacking areas with displaced people and children, that they were bombed because of revolutionary forces,” he told RFA.
Calls to junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered. But state-run MRTV television denied the reports of the airstrike on Monday evening’s news broadcast, saying subversive media outlets were intentionally spreading fake news, Associated Press reported.
The fighter jet, likely flying from Mandalay region’s Meiktila Air Force Base, attacked the school in Oe Htein Kwin village around 9:30 a.m., during class time, according to residents.
Medical centers nearby are overwhelmed because many victims are severely injured, one of the residents said.
According to the nongovernment Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which records fatalities in addition to numbers incarcerated by the junta, more than 6,600 civilians have been killed by security forces since the February 2021 coup.
The worst recorded fatal event for children since the coup was an April 11, 2023, airstrike on Pazigyi village, Kantbalu Township, Sagaing region, which killed 128 people, including 40 children.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Reporting by Kyaw Kyaw Aung. Edited by Taejun Kang and Mat Pennington.
Updates death toll, state-run TV denying the airstrike.
