Around 10 a.m. on October 21, near a village in Hpruso Township, Karenni State, a military junta drone dropped bombs on internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were harvesting rice in a field.

According to the IDPs working there, one person was killed after being hit in the head, and two others were seriously injured.

“It hit him directly on the head. The bullet fragment went into his brain. We were watching to see if he would regain consciousness, but it was just no longer possible,” said one displaced person who was at the scene of the drone strike.

The attack occurred while the displaced people were in the middle of harvesting. The deceased man is a relative of the two injured victims. He was loading harvested rice onto a farm truck when the drone-dropped bomb struck him directly on the head. The injured are a man in his 50s, who is the father-in-law, and a man in his 30s, who is the son-in-law.

October and November are the months when local farmers and displaced people in the area harvest rice and groundnuts from the fields. While they are taking risks to travel to their farms and fields for their livelihood, they are encountering such bad incidents.

From August to October alone, in Hpruso Township, two people have been killed and seven injured due to drone and heavy artillery attacks by the military junta, according to data available from Kantarawaddy Times.