Bombing of dissident Myanmar govt event kills at least 50

Bangkok, Apr 11 (EFE).- At least 50 people died Tuesday in Myanmar after a bombardment by the army against the National Unity Government, formed by former parliament members after the 2021 coup, the organization’s spokesman told EFE.

The airstrike by the Myanmar armed forces targeted an inauguration ceremony for an administrative office linked to the NUG in the town of Pazigyi, in Sagaing – a main rebel stronghold in the country – the spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

“Our current estimates are of at least 50 fatalities,” he said.

The figure coincides with that of independent local media such as The Irrawaddy, which said military planes dropped two bombs while 100 people attended the inauguration of what he calls the People’s Authority Office in Pazigyi.

This is one of the deadliest attacks since the coup, which ended a decade of democratic transition and plunged the country into a spiral of violence and semi-anarchy, with the military controlling barely a quarter of the nation.

The NUG spokesman compared the magnitude of this bombardment with an air strike in October during a music festival in the north of the country to commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organization. He said that incident killed some 80 people.

On Mar. 27, the junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said he would “firmly appease” the resistance, targeting in particular the NUG and its armed wing, the People’s Defense Forces, during a military parade for Armed Forces Day.

The NUG, which operates semi-clandestinely, was partly formed by former parliamentarians of Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted government, while the defense forces emerged shortly after, mostly comprising young people who joined the armed struggle. They were trained by the ethnic minority guerrillas that have operated in the country for decades.

In line with what was announced, the armed forces have recently escalated violence. At least eight people died in late March, including two children, after a bombardment in the state of Chin, while two weeks earlier some thirty were killed near the capital.

Thomas Andrews, the United Nations rapporteur for Myanmar, said in March that more than 3,000 civilians had been killed, 1.3 million have had to flee their homes and 16,000 have become political prisoners since the coup. EFE

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