Four people including a child were injured in a junta airstrike on the main Mandalay to Myitkyina road near Doepin Village in Kawlin Township, Sagaing Region, on 14 July 2025.

The 5:00 pm airstrike on the main road that connects Mandalay City, Myanmar’s second largest city, to Myitkyina City, the Kachin State capital to the north, injured four people, one of whom was a child and caused fires that destroyed two oil tankers and a roadside diner, according to local resistance forces.

A resistance force member who is active in the border area between Sagaing Region and Kachin State said: “If we pinpoint the location [of the airstrike] it’s near the border between Kawlin and Tigyaing townships in Sagaing Region. There’s a small village there called Doepin, and that’s where the airstrike hit. Two men, a woman, and a child were injured, and we’ve received information that one of them is in a serious condition.”

According to a statement from the Kawlin People’s Defense Force (PDF) the junta fighter jet that carried out the attack is believed to have come from the Tada-U Airbase in Mandalay Region.

Similarly, on 5 July 2025, two junta fighter jets dropped three bombs on the 40 Mile Road, a 40-mile dirt road that bypasses a junta roadblock that was set up on the main Mandalay to Myitkyina highway in Kanbalu Township, Sagaing Region in early March 2025. The attack killed two people and disrupted travel in the area even more than it already had been.

Previously, in August 2024, the junta had set up a blockade on the Mandalay to Myitkyina highway close to Indaw Town in Sagaing Region. But when PDFs and allied groups captured Indaw Town, eight months later on 7 April 2025, they re-opened the road. The imminent loss of this roadblock led to the junta setting up the Kanbalu Township roadblock in early March 2025.

Since the junta set up the Kanbalu Township roadblock vehicles have had to use the 40 Mile Road dirt road detour which has led to extensive delays and food shortages in Kachin State.