People flee from a village after renewed fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic minority armed group, in Pauktaw Township in western Rakhine State in November 2023. File.
| Photo Credit: AFP

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said he is “alarmed” by reports of ongoing Myanmar military air strikes on villages in Rakhine state, where locals told AFP more than 20 people were killed on March 18.

Clashes have rocked Myanmar’s western Rakhine state since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since the military’s 2021 coup.

Mr. Guterres is “alarmed by reports of ongoing air strikes by the military, including today in Minbya township that reportedly killed and injured many civilians,” a spokesman for the UN chief said.

Minbya township lies east of state capital Sittwe, which has been all but cut off by AA fighters in recent weeks.

The air strike hit the village of Thar Dar around 1:45 a.m. on March 18, killing 10 men, four women and 10 children, one resident told AFP.

“There was no fighting in our village and they bombed us,” he said, asking for anonymity for security reasons.

Another resident, also asking for anonymity, said 23 people had been killed in the blast and 18 wounded.

The recent conflict has displaced tens of thousands in Rakhine, where a 2017 military crackdown sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.

With most mobile networks down, communication with the riverine region is extremely difficult.

Junta troops hold Sittwe but in recent weeks AA fighters have made gains in surrounding districts.

India and Bangladesh also affected

Fighting has also spilled over into neighbouring India and Bangladesh.

Last month, at least two people were killed in Bangladesh after mortar shells fired from Myanmar during clashes there landed across the border.

The AA is one of several armed ethnic minority groups in Myanmar’s border regions, many of whom have battled the military since independence from Britain in 1948 over autonomy and control of lucrative resources.

Homes destroyed after air and artillery strikes in Mung Lai Hkyet displacement camp, in Laiza, Myanmar, on October 10, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Myanmar’s ruling junta ordered air strikes and troop reinforcements as it tried to recover lost outposts near the Chinese border from rebels, the military said.

The toppling of Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government in a 2021 coup sparked a huge backlash and the military junta is now battling opponents across swaths of the country.

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) attacked Myanmar military positions around Muse district in northern Shan state on Thursday and near the remote town of Laiza in Kachin state on Friday.

The military was forced to retreat on Friday afternoon and ordered air strikes, as well as artillery and troop reinforcements, the junta said in a statement shortly before midnight Friday.

The KIA said Saturday that the military had counter-attacked with air strikes and ground artillery.

It added that the junta had suffered some fatalities in the latest clashes this week but did not provide a death toll.

“We seized a lot of guns and other equipment from the military,” KIA Colonel Naw Bu told AFP.

The KIA controls large parts of the Christian-majority Kachin state and has clashed with Myanmar’s military for decades.

The region has seen intense fighting since the coup, and the junta accuses the KIA of training People’s Defence Forces that have sprung up in resistance.

Muse lies on the path of a proposed $8.9 billion high-speed rail link from China’s landlocked Yunnan province to Myanmar’s west coast, a key part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The junta has been accused of carrying out multiple bloody attacks on civilians as it struggles to crush resistance to its 2021 coup.

Nearly 30 people were killed and dozens were wounded this month after a military strike on a camp for displaced people near Laiza.

Amnesty International said the deadly attack on the camp was likely the result of the Myanmar military using a large unguided aerial-delivered bomb, while the junta blamed the explosion on a store of rebel bombs.