Myanmar military air strike on monastery kills 14 in Sagaing region

Fourteen people, including three women, were killed and 20 others injured when Myanmar's military carried out an air strike on a Buddhist monastery in the central Sagaing region, an opposition group and a villager said. The victims were attending a weeklong meditation retreat at the monastery.

The air strike took place in Swel Le Oh village in Myaung township, about 75 kilometres west of Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, according to Nway Oo, a spokesperson for the Civil Defence and Security Organisation of Myaung Township (CDSOM). A fighter jet dropped a bomb inside the monastery compound, Nway Oo added.

The villager, whose mother-in-law was among those killed, said the fighter jet dropped two bombs about 15 minutes apart. The second blast damaged a house near the monastery, where more than 100 people were taking part in a weeklong retreat during Buddhist Lent. Residents fled to a nearby community after cremating the victims' bodies.

The attack is the latest in a series of frequent and deadly airstrikes by Myanmar's military against armed pro-democracy forces and ethnic armed groups, which often result in civilian casualties. The strike also came a week after the UN-established Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said it had observed a "notable escalation" in military airstrikes in the months leading up to elections held in December and January. The mechanism claimed the attacks had continued "unabated" since the elections.

Myanmar's foreign ministry rejected the IIMM's findings, saying "limited airstrikes" and counterterrorism operations were directed solely at military targets and conducted in response to insurgent and terrorist groups in accordance with rules of engagement. It said security forces exercised maximum restraint to prevent civilian casualties.

Myanmar has been mired in conflict since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, triggering a civil war. After security forces violently suppressed peaceful demonstrations, many opponents of military rule took up arms, while large parts of the country remain engulfed in fighting. The military has increasingly relied on airstrikes to combat opposition forces, including the armed People's Defence Forces in Sagaing, a major stronghold of resistance. The resistance forces, however, have little effective defence against aerial attacks.