In the years since the coup, October has come to embody the darkest chapter in Kachin State, a month when the junta’s cruelty peaks and many innocent lives are lost.
On October 23, 2022, more than a year after the coup, the junta carried out a nighttime air raid on A Nang Pa, a small community in Hpakant Township, Kachin State.
Kachin musicians, Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) staff and officials, and members of the public had gathered in A Nang Pa for a commemorative ceremony and concert when the junta launched an unexpected airstrike, killing 69 people. The A Nang Pa bombing also exemplified the junta's blatant and merciless brutality.
October 23, 2025, marked the third anniversary of the A Nang Pa attack, which many consider a massacre. A Kachin musician expressed that he continues to mourn the victims to this day.
“Three people from the music world died in that incident. The well-known Aura Li and Zaw Moon (King) were among them. I’m not sure if people still remember this tragedy. For me, every time I think about them giving their lives while simply doing their best as musicians, it makes me so sad. It’s been three years, but the trauma still feels as fresh as if it happened yesterday,” he told KNG.
The junta deliberately targeted a concert in A Nang Pa celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the KIO the political wing of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), fully aware that many civilians would be present. The cowardly and calculated attack killed 69 people and injured many more, including artists, KIO officials, businessmen, and civilians. The October tragedy in A Nang Pa remains a haunting nightmare for the Kachin people, a chapter that is difficult to forget.
About a year after the A Nang Pa bombing, on October 9, 2023, the junta launched another airstrike on the Mong Lai Khet refugee camp, located in KIO-controlled territory, killing 29 internally displaced people (IDPs) and injuring more than 50. The camp is located near Laiza Town, the KIO headquarters in Waingmaw Township, Kachin State, close to the China border.
A woman who survived the bombing expressed that the junta's unprovoked attack on an IDP camp, located in an area that was not an active combat zone, still haunts her like a living hell she can never escape.
“Since that day, everyone in the Mong Lai Khet camp has been living with deep trauma. Fear is always in our hearts. Just hearing the words ‘drones’ or ‘planes’ terrifies us. Losing so many people we knew has left us deeply scarred. Even now, whenever we hear news of airstrikes elsewhere, we panic all over again,” she said.
A female Kachin human rights activist condemned the A Nang Pa and Mong Lai Khet bombings, which took place in different Octobers, saying they demonstrated the junta’s deliberate targeting of civilians to create bloodbaths.
“Incidents like the A Nang Pa bombing clearly show that the junta’s goal is to kill as many people as possible in its malicious attacks. It’s obvious that these massacres are carried out deliberately to scare people. That’s the only way the junta can hold onto power. Their actions aren’t just war crimes—they show a complete lack of morality and total disregard for human life. The junta has no sense of humanity at all,” she said.
A week after the Mong Lai Khet camp bombing, on October 16, the junta carried out airstrikes on the KIO’s regional headquarters in Hpakant Township and on A Nang Pa, killing at least 10 KIA troops, including 4 officers.
Examining the pattern over almost five years since the coup, it is clear that the deadliest junta airstrikes in Kachin State tend to take place in October.
Every October, the Kachin people who lost family and loved ones to the junta’s brutal killings come together to mourn and pray for the victims, as the painful memories of that month resurface year after year.
