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11-10-2023
NAYPYIDAW: At least 29 people, including children, have been killed in an artillery strike on a displaced persons’ camp in north-east Myanmar, near the Chinese border.
The camp is in an area controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), one of several ethnic insurgent groups which have been fighting for self-rule for many decades.
All the victims were civilians, a KIO spokesman told media.
It is one the deadliest attacks in the 63-year-long conflict in Kachin State.
Kachin officials say the armed forces have scaled up attacks on KIO-run areas over the past year because of growing Kachin support for other insurgent groups fighting the military government.
Much of Myanmar has been embroiled in a wider civil war since a 2021 military coup displaced the country’s elected government. The military has increasingly used air strikes against opposition-controlled towns and villages since seizing power.
The exiled National Unity Government (NUG) has blamed the junta for the attack on the camp, describing it as a “war crime and crime against humanity”.
Junta spokesman Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun denied that the military was behind the attack.
He claimed the army did not have any operations in the area and said the destruction was “probably” caused by stockpiled explosives.
Images shared by local media showed bodies being pulled from the rubble and dozens of body bags lying side by side.
The attack late on Monday night happened in the Mong Lai Khet camp for displaced persons, on the outskirts of Laiza, the town on the Chinese border where the KIO has its headquarters.
Parts of the camp were destroyed by powerful explosions at about midnight, KIO officials told media.
Footage of the aftermath shows many houses obliterated and large numbers of casualties.
Kachin officials believe at least 11 children are among those killed. Fifty-six more people were also injured in the latest attack, 44 of whom had been taken to hospital for treatment. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
