'Saw people cut to pieces’: How Myanmar military uses deadly airstrikes on civilians to quell rebellion

On Tuesday, the skies turned deadly for the people of Pazigyi village in the north-western Sagaing region of Myanmar. The Myanmar air force dropped multiple bombs while attack helicopters blitzed a gathering of civilians, who were attending a ceremony held by opponents of army rule.

The strike claimed the lives of at least 100 people — an attack that could be the junta’s deadliest since a coup two years ago.

We take a closer look at what happened on Tuesday in Myanmar and how the military has increasingly used air strikes against their opponents since seizing power in February 2021.

The deadly airstrike

“I was standing a short distance from the crowd when a friend of mine contacted me on the phone about the approach of a fighter jet. The jet dropped bombs directly on the crowd, and I jumped into a nearby ditch and hid. A few moments later, when I stood up and looked around, I saw people cut to pieces and dead in the smoke. The office building was destroyed by fire,” a witness to Tuesday’s aerial attack told the Associated Press.

The attack , according to a BBC report, began about 07:00 local time and dropped a bomb, followed by a helicopter gunship which attacked the village for 20 minutes. The airstrike in Sagaing came as communities in this region have put up some of the strongest opposition to military rule in Myanmar.

Tuesday’s attack came as about 150 people, including women and children, had gathered to celebrate the opening of a People’s Defence Forces (PDF) office. The PDF are volunteer anti-coup militias waging an armed campaign against the military in various parts of Myanmar.

Those who survived the attack said that they tried to collect the dead after the strike but it was proving to be difficult as pieces of bodies had scattered across the area among shredded clothing and ruined houses.

Outrage over the attack

The attack on civilians prompted anguish and anger from all different corners of the world. Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said he was horrified by the incident, calling it a “blatant disregard for international law.”

He said: “As I have previously noted, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the military and its affiliated militias are responsible for an extremely broad range of human rights violations and abuses since 1 February 2021, some of which may constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

The United States urged the Myanmar military to stop the violence. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said, “These violent attacks further underscore the regime’s disregard for human life and its responsibility for the dire political and humanitarian crisis in Burma following the February 2021 coup.”

Nabila Massrali, a spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy of the European Union was quoted as saying: “The EU is deeply shocked by reports of the latest atrocity committed by the military regime in Sagaing, taking the lives of dozens of innocent civilians. We will continue to work to hold those responsible fully accountable.”

The military took responsibility for the attack on Tuesday, but denied taking aim at civilians, saying it was intended for ‘terrorists’.

“Yes, we launched the airstrike,” military spokesman Zaw Min Tun told a state-backed television channel.

Leading human rights group Amnesty called for a suspension of aviation fuel to Myanmar as a measure to stop such attacks. Amnesty International’s Business and Human Rights Researcher Montse Ferrer said, “The relentless air attacks across Myanmar highlight the urgent need to suspend the import of aviation fuel. Amnesty reiterates its calls on all states and businesses to stop shipments that may end up in the hands of the Myanmar air force. This supply chain fuels violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, and it must be disrupted in order to save lives.

When bombs rained down

Myanmar is at a war with itself. Since February 2021 when the military — the Tatmadaw — snatched power from the National League for Democracy, violence has risen unabated in the country. Since the coup, the scale of the junta’s violence and brutality has intensified, reaching nearly every corner of the country. In an attempt to assert its power, the junta has detained nearly 20,000 civilians and killed an estimated 3,000 others over the last two years. Meanwhile, 1.5 million people have been displaced as the junta and a strengthening resistance movement fight for territorial control.

It is reported that air strikes have become a regular occurrence across Myanmar, in an attempt to suppress a determined opposition. A BBC analysis of data from the conflict-monitoring group Acled (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project) shows that there has been at least 600 air attacks by the military between February 2021 and January 2023.

Experts note that the aerial attacks have been adopted by the military, as they suffered heavy causalities early on in road ambushes carried out by the People’s Defence Forces. Hence, they have relied on air support where helicopters and aircraft blast areas before the soldiers arrive to kill.

It is important to note here that the Myanmar junta relies upon Russian and Chinese aircraft to carry out these attacks on their people.

According to local media reports, the first such aerial attack after the coup took place on 27 March 2021. The Irrawaddy, an independent news outlet, reported that three ethnic Karen villagers were killed and at least seven injured when two junta jets bombed a village in Papun District, Karen State, in retaliation for the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) seizing a junta outpost early the same day. Over 10,000 villagers were forced to flee their homes and the KNLA said that it would escalate its defensive actions to protect its territory.

Since then bombs have continually dropped from the skies. In September last year, while world leaders descended on London to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth II ahead of her state funeral, people in Myanmar were mourning deaths that went unnoticed by most of the world.

On 16 September 2022, the junta launched an airstrike on the village of Let Yet Kone, near Tabayin in Sagaing Region. The attack took out an entire school, killing 11 school children. The attack became one of Myanmar’s deadliest civilian massacres involving children in 2022.

One eyewitness told BBC of the attack, “They fired right through the school walls, hitting the children. Pieces flying out of the main building injured children in the next building. There were big holes blown out of the ground floor.”

A month later, a similar airstrike killed as many as 80 people when air force jets bombed a concert in Kachin State. The attack came as people had gathered to attend an anniversary celebration of the Kachin ethnic minority’s main political organisation.

At the other of the country in southern Karen State, the junta executed another aerial attack in November 2022, killing three miners and injuring eight others.

However, despite the repeated attacks and the countless innocent deaths, opponents of the military rule vow to fight on in the hope that democracy once again returns to their country.

With inputs from agencies

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