The US Department of State said it was “deeply concerned” about the airstrikes and called on the regime to “cease the horrific violence.” “How many Myanmar children need to die before world leaders take strong, coordinated action to stop this carnage?” “The Myanmar military’s attacks against innocent people, including today’s airstrike in Sagaing, is enabled by world indifference and those supplying them with weapons,” said Tom Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar.

The strike was condemned internationally, with one top UN official saying global indifference to the situation in Myanmar contributed to the attack. We were informed that PDF were killed at that event under the attack.

NUG (National Unity Government) and PDF (People’s Defense Force) conducted an opening ceremony of the public administration office at Pazigyi village,” Zaw Min Tun said on the military’s Myawaddy TV channel. The junta has designated the NUG and resistance groups known as the People’s Defense Force in the country as terrorists. Zaw Min Tun confirmed the airstrike on Pazigyi Village and said if civilian casualties occurred it was because they were forced to help “terrorists.” Videos and images from the aftermath, shown to CNN from witnesses and a local activist group, also show bodies, some burned and in pieces, as well as destroyed buildings, vehicles and debris. This photo provided by the Kyunhla Activists Group shows the aftermath of an airstrike in Pazigyi village in Sagaing region's Kanbalu township, Myanmar, on April 11. the junta jets returned and shot the same place they had bombed that morning, he said.ĬNN cannot independently verify the incident but the eyewitness’s account matches reports in local media and from the NUG. “I saw lots of people coming onto the scene to search for their kids, crying and screaming,” he said.Īt around 5:30 p.m. He said he lost four family members in the strike, and a young child from his village was among the dead. The eyewitness said he saw dozens of bodies after the attack, including children as young as five. People were dying (as they were being transported) on motorbikes. “When I arrived at the scene we tried to search for people still alive,” he said. An Mi35 helicopter then circled and fired on the village minutes later, the eyewitness told CNN. Just before 8 a.m., a junta aircraft bombed the village where the ceremony was being held, the eyewitness and local media reported. “Most of the villagers were inside the event, so they didn’t notice the jet.” “We didn’t have any warning,” the eyewitness said.

The new town office was being opened under the authority of the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), for the people, as part of the anti-junta resistance. Like much of Sagaing, the area is not under the control of the military junta. Families had traveled from nearby villages for the event, where tea and food was offered and which coincided with the start of the Thingyan New Year celebrations. Of those who died, 158 bodies have been cremated, Aung Myo Min added in his comments to CNN.įirst responders and medical teams haven’t been able to return to the site of the attack because military planes have continued flying over the town, though there have been no further strikes, Aung Myo Min said earlier.Ībout 300 people had gathered in Pazigyi Village early on Tuesday morning to celebrate the opening of a local administration office, an eyewitness told CNN on the condition of anonymity because he fears retribution. Relatives were still recovering the charred bodies and limbs of victims killed in a military airstrike on a village in central Myanmar Wednesday, a day after one of the deadliest attacks since the junta seized power in a coup two years ago.Īn eyewitness, who hid in a tunnel during the attack, described a scene of horror as he approached the site of the military airstrike – of children dying, women screaming, and bodies heaped on the ground.Īt least 165 people, including 27 women and 19 children, were killed after Myanmar’s military junta bombed Kanbalu township in the central Sagaing region on Tuesday, the human rights minister of the ousted shadow National Unity Government Aung Myo Min wrote on Twitter, before confirming the figures to CNN.Ī further 30 people were wounded, 20 of whom remain in a serious condition including a pregnant woman and an eight-year-old child.

Myanmar general strike