Myanmar junta forces killed 28 civilians, including women and children, in an airstrike on a Buddhist monastery and a ground assault in Bago Region’s Yae Twin Kone village tract on 5 March, according to a new investigation released by Fortify Rights on 9 June.
The rights group said junta columns from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 20, Infantry Battalion (IB) 264, and LIB 439, operating under Light Infantry Division (LID) 77, entered the village tract in the early morning, opened fire on residents, bombed the monastery where civilians had sought shelter, and deployed at least one drone attack.
Fortify Rights said its findings were based on in-person interviews with 13 people conducted in Bago Region in March and April, including survivors, witnesses, resistance fighters and medical workers. The National Unity Government provided casualty records naming 26 people killed in the airstrike and two others killed in the village tract, though the group said it could not independently verify all the names.
One survivor, 43, told Fortify Rights that junta soldiers detained him alongside dozens of villagers and accused them of being members of the People’s Defence Force (PDF). He said he later heard a soldier report over the radio, “We shot one kid,” and realised the soldier was referring to his 14-year-old son, who was killed as he tried to flee. The man said he found the bodies of his wife and son after soldiers released him, and that he had overheard orders relayed by walkie-talkie to strike the monastery.
Another resident from Kyaung Kone village, who entered the monastery after the airstrike to help the wounded, said the building was destroyed, with its roof gone and its first floor collapsed. He described finding the body of a pregnant woman among the dead.
Survivors said the military allowed them to bury 26 people killed in the airstrike and two killed in shootings in two mass graves on 6 March.
Two days after the attack, on 7 March, PDF units under the National Unity Government (NUG) Ministry of Defence, together with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), carried out an operation to free civilians still held by junta forces, according to the NUG.
Fortify Rights said the detention of civilians and the bombing of the monastery may amount to war crimes. Director John Quinley said the bombing of the monastery “was not a justified military target,” and that the attack reflected the junta’s strategy of terrorising civilians in areas seen as supporting the resistance.
Bago Region, located between Yangon and the military capital Naypyidaw, has become a strategically significant battleground, with resistance forces establishing strongholds in parts of the region, the group said. Fortify Rights called on UN member states to increase support for international accountability and to provide political, economic and material support to Myanmar’s democratic movement, including the NUG.
