This UGC photo taken and obtained from the Facebook account of Mai So Jar on September 6, 2024 shows people gathering around a destroyed building following an air strike in Namhkham township in Myanmar’s northern Shan state. Myanmar military air strikes in northern Shan state killed 11 civilians and wounded 11 more, a spokeswoman for an ethnic minority armed group battling the junta told AFP on September 6.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Myanmar military air strikes in northern Shan state killed 11 civilians and wounded 11 more, a spokeswoman for an ethnic minority armed group battling the junta told AFP on Friday (September 6, 2024).

The junta is battling widespread armed opposition to its 2021 coup and its soldiers are accused of bloody rampages and using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities.

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“They bombed at two areas in Namhkam” town on Friday around 1:00 am local time (1830 GMT), Lway Yay Oo of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) said.

The strikes killed 11 and wounded 11, she said, adding that the office of a local political party had been damaged.

The dead were five men, four women and two children, she said.

Namhkam is around five kilometres (three miles) from the border with China’s Yunnan province, with TNLA fighters claiming control of the town following weeks of fighting last year.

Images on social media showed people sifting through rubble and carrying a young person who appeared to be wounded.

One video showed several destroyed buildings. AFP reporters geolocated that video to a site in Namhkam and said it had not appeared online before.

One resident said she had seen 13 wounded people in the local hospital.

“I heard they will hold funerals this evening,” she told AFP, asking for anonymity for security reasons.

The TNLA had warned residents of the danger of further airstrikes and said people would be allowed to leave the town for safety, she added.

AFP was unable to reach a junta spokesman for comment.

Since last year the military has lost swaths of territory near the border with China in northern Shan state to an alliance of armed ethnic minority groups and “People’s Defence Forces” battling to overturn its coup.

The groups have seized a regional military command and taken control of lucrative border trade crossings, prompting rare public criticism by military supporters of the junta’s top leadership.

Earlier this week junta chief Min Aung Hlaing warned civilians in territory held by ethnic minority armed groups to prepare for military counterattacks, state media reported.

The junta also announced this week that it had declared the TNLA a “terrorist” organisation.

Those found supporting or contacting the TNLA and two other ethnic minority armed groups, the Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), can now face legal action.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in 2021 and launched a crackdown that sparked an armed uprising.

Conflict since the coup has forced more than 2.7 million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

A Myanmar military air strike on a medical clinic wounded around 20 people in western Rakhine state, according to an ethnic armed group, a resident and local media on May 15.

Clashes have rocked Rakhine since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since a military junta’s coup in 2021.

AA fighters have seized territory, including along the border with India and Bangladesh, piling further pressure on the junta as it battles opponents elsewhere across the Southeast Asian country.

“I heard a very loud sound of jet fighters flying last night then I heard explosions around midnight,” a resident of Wea Gyi Htaunt village, near the town of Kyauktaw, told AFP.

“As soon as I knew it was an air strike, our family fled our house and hid in the woods,” she said, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

“I heard that tens of people who were outpatients, medical staff, and local villagers, got injured.”

At least 20 people, including outpatients, carers and staff were wounded in the attack that came shortly after midnight, the AA said on its Telegram account.

Five of those were seriously wounded and the clinic had been almost entirely destroyed, it said.

Local media also reported the strike and said 15 people had been wounded.

The resident said the AA had previously taken over the running of the clinic, located near Wea Gyi Htaunt.

The military had shelled the area repeatedly in recent days, she said.

Communication with Rakhine is extremely difficult, with most mobile networks down.

AFP has asked the junta for comment.

The AA is one of several armed ethnic minority groups in Myanmar’s border regions, many of whom have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 over autonomy and control of lucrative resources.

The AA claims to be fighting for more autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine population.

Fighting had spread to 15 of Rakhine state’s 17 townships since the November outbreak, the UN’s human rights chief said last month.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded and more than 300,000 displaced, it said.

Clashes between the AA and the military in 2019 roiled the region and displaced around 200,000 people.

The military launched a crackdown on the Rohingya minority there in 2017 which is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.