The New Mon State Party (NMSP) has remained silent despite a series of junta airstrikes in the Ye Chaung Phya area, the NMSP-controlled territory in southern Ye Township, Mon State.
The military carried out three separate airstrikes on the area — on May 27, June 3 and June 18.
Among them, the June 18 airstrike targeted the Peace Housing compound built and donated to the NMSP by the Japan-based Nippon Foundation in the Ye Chaung Phya area.
At least five buildings were damaged in the bombing of the housing compound, though no casualties were reported.
The compound accommodates not only the families of NMSP troops but also locals and displaced people.
In the past, the NMSP sent complaint letters to the junta’s Southeast Region Military Command and other higher authorities over human rights violations and artillery shelling committed by the military inside NMSP-controlled territory. On some occasions, the military reportedly issued apologies in response.
Speculation also suggests that the junta’s decision to carry out recent airstrikes inside NMSP territory, despite the group’s longstanding ceasefire with the military, may have been intended as a warning — to ensure the Mon armed group does not allow other resistance factions to take shelter in its area.
On May 27, a junta airstrike on Ye Belu (Ye Ogre Force) in the Ye Chaung Phya area killed 10 resistance fighters and injured more than 20 others.
Then on June 3, one orchard worker was killed during another military bombing raid on the Ye Chaung Phya area.
The NMSP, led by Nai Hong Sar, has been one of the groups that repeatedly attended the junta’s peace talks in the capital Naypyitaw after the military coup, under the pretext of resolving the country’s political crisis through political means.
But the NMSP’s continued engagement with the junta has also triggered internal dissent. On February 14, 2024, several leaders who rejected the party’s policy of continued talks with the coup regime, broke away and formed the New Mon State Party–Anti Dictatorship (NMSP-AD), choosing instead to take up armed resistance against the junta.
