YANGON – Many people have been killed in an artillery strike at a camp for internally displaced people in Myanmar’s Kachin state, among them women, children and the elderly, said the local media and activists in the area on Tuesday.

Multiple regions in Myanmar have been embroiled in conflict as ethnic minority armies and a resistance movement battle against military rule and a fierce crackdown by the junta after a 2021 coup.

The Kachin media and local sources said the incident took place close to midnight on Monday, a few kilometres from a military camp run by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which is in conflict with Myanmar’s ruling military.

The KIA could not immediately be reached for confirmation.

The reports and images were shared on social media by a minister in Myanmar’s anti-junta shadow National Unity Government, which did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

A spokesperson for Myanmar’s junta was not immediately reachable.

The attack happened at around 11.30pm on Monday night, Colonel Naw Bu of the KIA told AFP.

“We found 29 dead bodies, including children and older people... Fifty-six people were wounded,” he said, adding that the KIA was investigating what kind of strike had hit the camp.

“We did not hear any aircraft,” he noted, saying the KIA was looking into whether the military had used a drone to target the camp near Laiza town on the China border.

Ms Khon Ja, a well-known local activist with the Kachin Peace Network civil society group, told Reuters she had visited the local hospital and was told 29 people were dead.

“The attack happened at midnight. The bomb was too strong... The village was totally destroyed and disappeared,” she said.

“Fifty-nine are injured, 29 killed, confirmed by the hospital up to now,” she said.

Laiza, a town in northern Myanmar, is the capital of KIA, among the largest of dozens of ethnic groups that have been battling the military for decades.

It sits close to the Chinese border and is home to many civilians living in displacement camps in and around the town. REUTERS