A Myanmar military airstrike on a displacement camp in Rakhine state killed 12 people, including a five-year-old child, and wounded 18 others, witnesses and a rescue worker said on Saturday, 14 November. The strike hit the Byar La camp in Ponnagyun township, northeast of the state capital Sittwe, on Friday evening, in an area residents had believed was safe.
FAKTA
- What happened: A Myanmar military airstrike hit the Byar La camp for displaced people in Ponnagyun township, Rakhine state, on Friday evening.
- Killed: 12 people, including a five-year-old child.
- Wounded: 18 people.
- Confirmed by: Witnesses at the camp and Khine Hein Htet, chairman of the Phyusin Yin Khwin Foundation, a rescue and emergency service.
- Military response: Myanmar’s military could not be reached for comment on the attack.
- Context: Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military seized power in 2021. Monitors estimate that more than 100,000 people have been killed on all sides since the war began.
Myanmar Airstrike Displacement Camp: What We Know
Chit Su Wai, a 27-year-old shopkeeper at the camp, said her daughter, her aunt and her mother were all killed in the strike. “We did not hear the sound of the fighter jet — it just came and dropped the bombs,” she said.
Khine Hein Htet, who chairs the Phyusin Yin Khwin Foundation, confirmed the toll of 12 dead and said a five-year-old was among them, while 18 people were also injured. Many of the camp’s residents had been living there for four years.
“They believed the camp was safe, and they sheltered there together. When we arrived at the scene, most of the victims had died in one place,” he said, adding that the camp was not a combat area. “We never thought this camp would be targeted.”
By Saturday, the village was a scene of collapsed bamboo houses, with the wreckage of an upturned vehicle mixed among household goods and clothes. Locals had removed the bodies, wrapping them in plastic and burying them in makeshift graves.
Families Torn Apart
Aung Kyaw Min, a 45-year-old tuk-tuk driver, said he rushed to the village where his brother and sister lived after hearing of the attack, and found them both dead. The next day, he learned that his mother had also been killed, while his niece and nephews were still missing.
“Now all of them — my sister, brother, including my mother — were all killed. My niece and nephews are still missing, I don’t know where to find them,” he said.
Rakhine at the Centre of Myanmar’s Civil War
Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military staged a coup five years ago, provoking armed resistance from democracy activists and ethnic minority factions that have long held sway in the country’s border regions.
The western coastal state of Rakhine is among the regions worst hit by the war. It is controlled almost entirely by the ethnic minority Arakan Army, and has been blockaded by the military and pummelled with regular airstrikes.
The ACLED monitor estimates that more than 100,000 people have been killed in Myanmar on all sides since the civil war began.
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