MYANMAR – At least 18 people, most of them students, were killed in an air strike on two private schools by Myanmar’s military in a village in western Rakhine state, according to an armed group and local media.
Khaing Thukha, spokesperson for the Arakan Army (AA), which controls the area, told The Associated Press late Friday that a fighter jet dropped two bombs on Pyinnyar Pan Khinn and A Myin Thit private high schools in Thayet Thapin village, Kyauktaw township.
He said most of the victims were “17- to 18-year-old students from the private schools.” The situation in the village could not be independently verified, with internet and cellphone access in the area largely cut off. “We feel as sad as the victims’ families for the death of the innocent students,” the AA said in a statement on Telegram, blaming the military for the strike.
The AA is the armed wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It launched an offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and has since seized control of a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of the state’s 17 townships. Kyauktaw, about 250 km (150 miles) southwest of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, fell to the AA in February.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, 2021, triggering widespread resistance. After peaceful protests were crushed with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country remain engulfed in conflict.
More than 7,200 people have been killed by security forces since the coup, according to estimates from nongovernmental organisations. The military has recently intensified air strikes against the armed pro-democracy People’s Defence Force, whose fighters have little to no effective defence against aerial assaults. (Aljazeera)
