Attack is indicative of the military’s disregard for the lives of innocent children, rights group says
This photo taken on Oct. 29, 2023 shows children praying in a temporary church at a camp for internally displaced people in Demoso township in Myanmar’s Kayah state. (Photo: AFP)
Four children were killed and 15 wounded in a junta airstrike on a school in civil war-hit Myanmar on Feb. 5, according to a rights group.
The Daw Saw Ei school in Demoso township in Kayah state was hit by several bombs that left four boys aged between 12 and 14 dead and at least 15 other children wounded, said the Thailand-based Karenni Human Rights Group (KHRG), which is active in Kayah state, which has a significant Christian population.
In another Feb.5 attack three kilometers away in Loi Nan Pha village one person died and seven others, including five children, were hurt, the rights group said.
A village church and five houses were also damaged in the attacks, according to the Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian group that provides medical aid in Kayah state.
Junta-affiliated media, however, denied attacking Demoso township on Feb. 5.
“This further escalation of attacks on schools is indicative of the military’s disregard for the lives of innocent children,” KHRG said in a statement on Feb.5.
Since toppling the civilian government of Aung San Suu Ky in February 2021, at least 52 schools have been subjected to airstrikes and 199 schools damaged due to other reasons, Myanmar’s exiled National Unity Government said in a Feb. 6 statement.
In September 2022, 11 students were killed in an attack in the Sagaing region, which was condemned by Pope Francis.
“Targeting schools and religious buildings and killing children are inhumane acts,” the National Unity Government, comprising former lawmakers and members of ethnic groups said in the statement.
The Myanmar military is blatantly committing “a brutal war crime,” it added.
Meanwhile, nine members of the UN Security Council, including Britain and the US, condemned what they said were indiscriminate airstrikes by Myanmar’s military against civilians in a closed-door meeting on Myanmar’s crisis on Feb. 5.
Mountainous eastern Kayah state is witnessing fighting between the military and ethnic rebel groups that include Christians under the newly emerged People Defense Forces.
More than 40,000 out of an estimated 50,000 people in the capital Loikaw have fled their homes due to Junta airstrikes and artillery shelling after rebels seized the strategically important town in November.
Nearly 26 of the 41 parishes in the Loikaw diocese have been abandoned, according to Church sources.
Aid groups say Kayah state has around 250,000 displaced people sheltering in 200 camps.
Some 80,000 of them are housed in Church-run camps.
Christians make up 46 percent of Kayah state’s 350,000 people. About 90,000 are Catholics.
On Jan. 31, the junta extended emergency rule for another six months, thereby delaying promised elections in the Southeast Asian nation.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said the extension was necessary “to bring the nation to a normal state of stability and peace.”
Christians account for nearly 6 percent of Myanmar’s population of 54 million, the majority of whom are Buddhist.
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