MRAUK U, Myanmar: A Myanmar military air strike killed more than 30 people at a hospital, aid workers said on Thursday, as the junta wages a withering offensive ahead of elections.
The junta has increased air strikes year-on-year since the start of Myanmar´s civil war, conflict monitors say, after snatching power in a 2021 putsch ending a decade-long democratic experiment.
The military has set polls starting December 28 -- touting the vote as an off-ramp to fighting -- but rebels have pledged to block it from territory they control, which the junta is battling to claw back.
A military jet bombed on Wednesday the general hospital of Mrauk-U in western Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh, two aid workers said. A junta spokesman could not be reached for comment.
At least 20 bodies were visible on the ground outside the hospital overnight, while daybreak revealed rubble covering ward beds, masonry peppered by shrapnel and the nearby ground cratered.
“This is an inhuman act. It is vile and violent,” said aid worker Wai Hun Aung, who arrived on the scene on Thursday morning. He said 31 people were killed and 68 wounded. A separatist force gave a toll of 33 dead.
“They are saying that they will hold elections on December 28,” the aid worker added. “Even at this time, they are brutally killing the people.” Health workers and patients were killed, and “hospital infrastructure was severely damaged, with operating rooms and the main inpatient ward completely destroyed,” said World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on X.
Carpenter Maung Bu Chay said the strike killed three of his wife, and his daughter-in-law and her father. “When someone informed me they were in the completely destroyed building, I realised they hadn´t survived,” said the 61-year-old.
