The victims included soldiers’ relatives taken prisoner, including women and children, an insurgent group said.
By RFA Burmese
The Myanmar military killed 28 of its own soldiers and their detained relatives in an airstrike on insurgent positions near an ancient capital in Rakhine state, according to the rebels and a human rights group.
The Arakan Army, or AA, is fighting for control of Rakhine state and has made stunning gains over the past year, seizing 14 of its 17 townships from the control of the junta that seized power in an early 2021 coup.
The military has struck back with its air force, launching numerous bombing raids, which early on Sunday included a strike on Kyauk Se village, to the north of Mrauk U town.
“We don’t know the exact details yet but we do know that dozens are dead,” Myat Tun, director of the Arakan Human Rights Defenders and Promoters Association, told Radio Free Asia.
“There were no residents affected, it affected prisoners of war, including children,” he said.
The AA said 28 people were killed and 29 were wounded when the air force dropped three bombs on a temporary detention center run by the AA before dawn on Sunday.
“Those killed/injured in the bombing were prisoners and their families who were arrested in battles,” the AA said in a statement. “Military families were about to be released and were being temporarily detained in that place.”
Some of the wounded were in critical condition and the death toll could rise, the group said.
RFA tried to contact AA spokesperson, Khaing Thu Ka, and Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson, Hla Thein, for more information but neither of them responded by time of publication.
Mrauk U is the ancient capital of Rakhine kings who were conquered by Burmese kings in 1784.
The AA has captured hundreds of junta soldiers, police officers and their family members, in its relentless advance across the state, from its far north on the border with Bangladesh, down to the south where AA fighters have launched probes into neighboring Ayeyarwady division.
Families of soldiers and police in Myanmar often live near them in family quarters.
This was not the first AA prison to be bombed.
In September, military aircraft struck a detention center and hospital in Pauktaw town, killing more than 50 prisoners of war, the AA said at the time.
On Jan. 8, Junta airstrikes in Ramree township’s Kyauk Ni Maw village killed more than 50, including women and children, and some 500 homes were destroyed in a blaze that the bombing sparked.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
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