A junta drone dropped an artillery shell that killed nine civilians, including four children, and caused widespread structural damage in Khun Sar Kone Village in Kachin State’s Hpakant Township on 6 June 2025.

The drone dropped an artillery shell landed between a church and a monastery in Khun Sar Kone Village, which is in Lone Khin Village Tract, at around 9:00 pm on 6 June. The resulting explosion killed nine people and destroyed about 10 houses, according to a Hpakant Township resident.

He said to KNG: “The shell hit right between Khun Sar Kone Monastery and Kyay Zu Taw Church. Nine people were killed, including two women and four children. The bodies were so badly burned, it was hard to even identify them. The houses in that area are spaced out a bit, so maybe that’s why the number of casualties wasn’t even higher.”

The explosion was larger than normal because the artillery shell explosion ignited gunpowder and chemicals used by jade miners that were being stored in a nearby warehouse. 

Another Hpakant resident said: “There was some gunpowder stored at the spot where the shell landed, so the explosion was way more powerful than it would’ve been otherwise. The blast was so strong it knocked over nearby houses. Every house within about 100 meters of the site was destroyed. The ones that took a direct hit from the shell were completely blown apart.”

Of the nine killed people, seven have been identified and all of them were ethnic Kachin members of the same family.

The seven deceased who have so far been identified were: Daw Khaw Twein, age 58; Ma Nan Aye Aye Mu, age 22; Daw Hnin Hnin, age unknown; Zaw Sai Aung, age 10; Maung Zaw Rar, age 7; Maung Zaw Tu, age 10 months; and Maung Zaw Sai Du, age 1 year and 6 months. The other two fatalities were still unidentified at the time of reporting.

A junta column of about 200 soldiers first successfully re-entered Hpakant Township on 29 May 2025. They swept through Lone Khin Village Tract, destroying jade mining equipment and targeting civilian areas causing civilian casualties. The soldiers demanded 50 to 100 million MMK from jade mining companies for each of their pieces of heavy machinery, such as backhoes and trucks. If they did not pay, the soldiers set the heavy machinery on fire and destroyed it.

Since 29 May, junta soldiers  have taken and occupied the villages of Mawsisar, Kadaymaw, Mazwutyang and Khun Sar Kone in Lone Khin Village Tract. They took the villages one by one, burning and destroying heavy machinery, dump trucks and guard towers belonging to jade mining companies as they went. They also targeted civilian areas and caused civilian casualties.

Currently, the junta is arbitrarily firing artillery into Hpakant Township on a near daily basis raising concerns amongst the township’s residents that there will soon be heavy fighting between the junta and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Hpakant Township.