Myanmar Military Paraglider Bombs Buddhist Festival, Killing Dozens

Myanmar’s military junta bombed a Buddhist festival this week, killing at least two dozen people and injuring dozens more, according to a witness and the country’s civilian government in exile.

They said that a manned paraglider with a motor dropped a bomb on Monday evening on the festival, which doubled as a protest against the junta. A second witness also reported that a paraglider had carried out the strike.

The attack targeted Chaung U township in the Sagaing region, where about 100 people had gathered in a field after sunset to observe a Buddhist festival of lights with a candlelit event, said the witnesses, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Myanmar is in the middle of a brutal civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions of others. Military forces and rebel groups were not actively fighting in the area that was bombed on Monday.

At least 24 people were killed and at least 40 others were wounded in the attack on Monday, said the first witness and Nay Phone Latt, a spokesman for the National Unity Government, Myanmar’s civilian government in exile. Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group, said that 18 people had been killed and 45 injured, many critically.

A member of the Sagaing Region Strike Forces, a resistance group fighting the military government, was among those killed on Monday evening, the group said in a statement.

Myanmar’s military had not issued an official statement on the attack as of Wednesday evening. The junta, which has ruled Myanmar for a total of more than half a century, seized power again in 2021, ending a brief period of civilian-led democracy and setting off the war.

Sagaing, a northwestern region near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, has been fiercely contested by the military and resistance groups in recent months as the junta prepares to hold an election in December. Independent observers say the election will not be fair because many opposition parties have been disqualified by the junta and plan to boycott the polls.