A Myanmar military strike during a festival event and protest killed 40 people, including children, a participant and a local committee member to AFP on Tuesday.
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 with ethnic armed groups against the junta.
Hundreds of people gathered in central Myanmar’s Chaung U township for the Thadingyut full moon festival on Monday evening when the army dropped bombs on the crowd, according to a member of the committee that organized the event.
The woman, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said people were gathering for the festival and an anti-junta protest around 7 p.m. when the bombs killed more than 40 people and injured about 80 others.
“The committee alerted people and a third of the crowd managed to flee,” she told AFP. “But immediately, a motorized paraglider flew right above the crowd,” dropping two bombs in the center of the gathering.
“The kids were completely torn,” said the woman, who was not at the scene but attended the funeral Tuesday.
When another powered paraglider flying overhead left the area, she said people rushed to help the injured.
“As of this morning, we were still collecting body parts from the ground – pieces of flesh, limbs, body parts that were shattered,” she added.
A Chaung U resident who attended the event on Monday confirmed the estimated toll, saying people were trying to run when they realized the paramotor was flying overhead.
“While I was telling people ‘please don’t run,’ the paramotor dropped two bombs,” he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Two of my comrades were killed right in front of me. There were even more who died in front of me.”
He said he attended funerals Tuesday 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 Tuesday evening.
‘Brutal campaign’
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International said in a statement that the nighttime attack “should serve as a horrific wake-up call that Myanmar’s civilians are in urgent need of protection.”
The attack showed the army was “escalating an already brutal campaign against pockets of resistance”, the London-based organization said.
“The international community may have forgotten the conflict in Myanmar, but the Myanmar military is taking advantage of scrutiny to carry out war crimes with impunity,” said Joe Freeman, Amnesty’s Myanmar researcher.
He called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Bloc to increase pressure on Myanmar’s junta as ASEAN officials prepare for a meeting later this month.
The junta has touted elections starting December 28 as a path to reconciliation.
But a UN expert dismissed the vote as “fraud” to disguise continued military rule, and rebels have vowed to block it.
The army is now besieging rebel enclaves, aiming to expand territorial control ahead of the polls.
