A Myanmar junta airstrike on a hospital in the west of the country on Thursday night killed at least four people, including patients and staff, and wounded 15, a rebel group told Radio Free Asia on Friday.
The Thursday strike hit a hospital in Chin state’s Mindat township, the anti-junta People’s Administration in the region said.
The state, bordering India, has seen a surge of violence since the Myanmar military staged a coup in early 2021, with junta forces accused of frequently razing villages of the largely Christian minority and persecution, including the planting of landmines.
“They dropped six 150-pound bombs. The hospital was totally destroyed,” Yaw Man, a spokesperson for the anti-junta People’s Administration Team in the region, told RFA. “There are 15 wounded, four dead.”
The four dead in the attack on the Vawmm’tu Hospital in Vawmm village, about 48 km (30 miles) from Mindat township, were men between the ages of 20 and 30, he said. Other communities in the region were also attacked by junta aircraft but the extent of casualties and damage was not immediately known, he added.
A call by RFA to Chin state’s junta spokesperson, Aung Cho, went answered. On April 2, five people were killed and many wounded in Auk Chaing village, in the same township, in a junta air attack.
According to data compiled by RFA, junta airstrikes have killed 397 people and wounded 889 nationwide from January to March this year, including attacks on civilians and during battles with anti-junta forces.
The Irrawaddy reports; Myanmar’s junta is being accused of committing another war crime after a hospital in Chin State was bombed on Thursday night.
Regime fighter jets bombed Wun Ma Thuu Hospital in administrative unit town of the state’s Mindat Township at about 8 pm Thursday, killing four civilians and injuring 15 more, an official from the Chinland Defense Force-Mindat (CDF-Mindat) told The Irrawaddy.
“The people who were killed and wounded were patients and family members looking after them,” the Chin resistance official said.
CDF-Mindat said the hospital had up to 300 beds and was located in the east of the township. The resistance group said there was no fighting in the area before the hospital was destroyed in the nighttime airstrike.
Intentionally targeting medical facilities is a war crime under international law.
Photos from the scene show the entire hospital in flames. Officials say the hospital was destroyed along with all the medical equipment and medicine inside it.
Before bombing the hospital, junta jets hit another area of Mindat Township at about 4 pm. Junta jets also bombed civilian neighborhoods in Mindat Township at 11 pm on Thursday, but the amount of damage and number of casualties is not yet known, CDF-Mindat said.
Chin State is among Myanmar’s poorest areas. Its mountainous terrain and limited transportation routes make it difficult for residents to access health services and for healthcare providers to access residents. Since the coup, access to medicine and healthcare has plunged further, leading to a public health crisis that includes a surge in infant and maternal mortality rates.
On April 3, junta fighter jets dropped cluster bombs on civilian targets in the township’s Auk Chaing village. The Mindat Township People’s Administration said five civilians, including two toddlers, were injured by the bombs. Twelve homes were destroyed and others were damaged by the bombs, the administration said. It said a school was also damaged by the cluster bombs.
The use of cluster bombs is prohibited by most countries globally. The bombs are composed of “droplets” (submunitions) that are scattered when the bomb hits its target. The droplets can remain explosive for decades.
On April 1, three junta fighter jets used bombs and machine-gun fire during an attack on a village at Mindat’s administrative unit two, damaging a home and a religious building.
On March 15, a mother and her six-year-old daughter were killed during a junta airstrike on a village in Mindat’s administrative unit three, according to the township’s administration. Four more people were wounded in the attack, which also destroyed two schools and a church.
Myanmar closes border checkpoint amidst conflict
Meanwhile, RFA Burmese in another report says: Myanmar shut a main border crossing with Thailand early on Friday as junta forces carried out airstrikes in nearby areas, Thai officials and residents of the area told Radio Free Asia.
Insurgent forces captured most of the eastern border town Myawaddy this month but they were forced to withdraw days later under the threat of junta airstrikes. Junta troops re-gained control of a main battalion headquarters in the town on Wednesday.
Residents of the Thai town of Mae Sot, over a border river from Myawaddy, said they heard explosions early on Friday, apparently coming from junta airstrikes to the south of Myawaddy.
A turboprop aircraft was heard flying over Palu, to the south of Myawaddy, and nearly 10 explosions were heard, according to residents on the Thai side.
Separately, a Thai immigration official said crossings from Myanmar over the main border bridge had stopped and it was not clear who was in control on the Myawaddy side.
“People from Myanmar cannot come yet but they can cross back from here,” said the official, who declined to be identified.
Trucks that normally deliver goods to Myanmar via a second bridge, which is used mainly for cargo, have been unloading their shipments at small river crossings instead.
A Karen militia force commander with extensive business interests and a history of close ties with the junta helped free about 200 junta troops who had been cut off by insurgent Karen National Liberation Army troops in the fighting this month, Thai media reported.
The commander, Col. Saw Chit Thu, who broke away from the main Karen guerrilla organization in the 1990s, has close ties with Chinese investors who have funded casinos and online scamming rackets on the Myanmar side of the border. The United Kingdom imposed sanctions on him in 2023 linked to suspicions of involvement in human trafficking and other rights violations.
Saw Chit Thu, who denies wrongdoing, had this month raised doubts about his alliance with the junta, saying he was no longer supporting junta forces, but according to media reports, he had acted to protect his business interests in helping junta forces re-take control of Myawaddy.
Democracy and rights activists have long denounced Saw Chit Thu and his militia, the Karen National Army.
“Saw Chit Thu is a rights-abusing militia commander who has gotten rich via a horrid mix of abuses of deported migrants, human trafficking of persons to scam centers, gambling, sexual exploitation and prostitution, and worse,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch in Asia.
“I think no one should be surprised that he suddenly betrayed the [Karen National Liberation Army] by rushing back into the arms of his [State Authority Council] junta overlords who have been complicit in Chit Thu’s massive profits at the expense of the Karen people.”