Junta artillery shells hit Sagaing Region’s Kale Town whilst students were resitting their matriculation exams there after their original, unmarked, answer sheets were destroyed in the earthquake.
The matriculation exam resit began on 16 June 2025 and continues on every day until 21 June. The artillery shells hit the Kale Town wards of Tahan and Kyoetthonepin at 1:30 pm on 18 June, which raised concerns amongst the student’s parents.
The father of a student from Tahan Ward said: “We know the shells were fired by the junta’s artillery. One of them landed on the road next to the Tahan football field, right behind YCW Private School [where students were sitting the matriculation exam], and it damaged some houses. Luckily, no one was hurt. The explosion was so loud. Another shell fell in Kyoetthonepin, but it didn’t explode.”
He added that the second shell, which did not explode, had landed on a football field in Kyoetthonepin Ward, ricocheted through a fence and come to rest under the house. The family in the house only survived because the shell failed to detonate.
An executive from a Kale Town-based civil society organisation said: “Because of the natural disaster, the kids have to retake an exam they've already taken once, and that’s really exhausting for them. On top of that, firing artillery during the exam period shows a complete lack of sympathy for these children. Everyone involved should do everything they can to stop incidents like this.”
The students had to resit the matriculation exam because their unmarked exam papers were being kept at Mandalay University and were destroyed when the university’s main building was engulfed in flames following the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Myanmar on 28 March 2025 and had its epicentre about 16km (9.9 miles) west of Mandalay City.
Kale Town is home to a large number of internally displaced people (IDPs) who fled from neighbouring Chin State.
The matriculation exams are taking place from 16 to 21 June in two government high schools in Kale Town and one in Indainggyi Village in Kale Township.
According to sources from the junta education department, of the 1,107 students registered, 1,086 participated in the exams and 21 did not turn up.
