Myanmar junta strike kills dozens at festival protest, say residents

YANGON – A Myanmar military strike on a festival event and protest killed 40 people, including children, an attendee and a local committee member told AFP on Oct 7.

Myanmar has been reeling from civil war

since the military seized power in a 2021 coup,

prompting pro-democracy rebels to take up arms and ally themselves with ethnic armed groups against the junta.

Hundreds gathered in central Myanmar’s Chaung-U township for the Thadingyut full moon festival on the evening of Oct 6 when the military dropped bombs on the crowd, according to a member of the committee that organised the event.

The woman, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said people were gathering for the festival and an anti-junta demonstration at around 7pm when the bombs killed more than 40 people and wounded about 80 others.

“The committee alerted people and one-third of the crowd managed to flee,” she told AFP. “But a motor-powered paraglider flew right over the crowd”, dropping two bombs in the centre of the gathering.

“Children were completely torn apart,” said the woman, who was not at the scene but attended funerals on Oct 7.

When another motorised paraglider flying overhead left the area, people rushed to help the wounded, she said.

“As at this morning, we were still collecting body parts from the ground – pieces of flesh, limbs, parts of bodies that were blown apart,” she said.

A resident of Chaung-U who attended the event on Oct 6 confirmed the estimated toll, saying people attempted to flee when they realised a paramotor was flying overhead.

“While I was telling people, ‘please don’t run’, the paramotor operator dropped two bombs,” he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Two of my comrades were killed just in front of me. There were even more who died in front of me.”

He said he attended funerals on Oct 7 for nine friends who were killed.

A local media outlet also said 40 people were killed in the attack.

A junta spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment late on Oct 7.

‘Brutal campaign’ 

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International said in a statement that the night-time attack “should serve as a gruesome wake-up call that civilians in Myanmar need urgent protection”.

The attack showed the military was “intensifying an already brutal campaign against pockets of resistance”, the London-based organisation said.

“The international community may have forgotten about the conflict in Myanmar, so the Myanmar military is taking advantage of reduced scrutiny to carry out war crimes with impunity,” said Mr Joe Freeman, Amnesty’s Myanmar researcher.

He called on Asean to increase pressure on the Myanmar junta as the bloc’s officials prepare for a meeting later in October.

The junta has touted polls beginning on Dec 28 as a path to reconciliation.

But a UN expert has dismissed the vote as a “fraud” to disguise continuing military rule, and rebels have vowed to block it.

The military is now besieging rebel enclaves, aiming to expand territorial control ahead of the polls. AFP