Myanmar’s military killed more than 30 people in an airstrike on a hospital, an aid worker said Thursday, as the junta ramps up a blistering campaign ahead of elections slated for later this month.
Rights groups and conflict monitors say the junta has intensified air attacks every year since plunging the country into civil war with its 2021 coup, which ended a decade-long experiment with democracy.
The military plans to begin polls on Dec. 28 – marketing the vote as a path out of conflict – but rebel groups have vowed to block balloting in areas they control, where fierce clashes continue as the junta fights to regain ground.
Aid worker Wai Hun Aung said a military jet bombed the general hospital in Mrauk-U, a historic town in western Rakhine state near the Bangladesh border, on Wednesday evening.
“The situation is very terrible,” he said after arriving at the scene on Thursday morning. “As of now, we can confirm there are 31 deaths and we think there will be more. Also there are 68 wounded, and there will be more and more.”
A junta spokesman could not be reached immediately for comment.
At least 20 shrouded bodies were visible overnight outside the hospital, where daybreak revealed an entire wing gutted by the blast, with rubble and debris covering ward beds.
A large tree outside appeared half-felled by the force of the explosion, while a wide crater marked the soil nearby as bodies were gathered for funerals.
Local carpenter Maung Bu Chay said the strike killed three of his loved ones – his wife, daughter-in-law and her father.
“I heard the explosion from my village,” said the 61-year-old. “I spent the entire night not knowing where the bombs had landed.
“When someone informed me they were in the completely destroyed building, I realized they hadn’t survived,” he added.
“I have nothing to say. I feel resentful about their act. I feel strong anger and defiance in my heart.”
Rakhine state is controlled almost in its entirety by the Arakan Army, or AA – an ethnic minority separatist force active long before the military staged a coup that toppled the civilian government of democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
A statement by the AA’s health department on Wednesday night said 10 hospital patients were “killed on the spot” in the airstrike at around 9 p.m.
The AA has emerged as one of the most powerful opposition groups in the civil war ravaging Myanmar, alongside other ethnic minority fighters and pro-democracy partisans who took up arms after the coup.
Scattered rebels initially struggled to make headway before a trio of groups led a joint offensive starting in 2023, pushing back the military and prompting it to bolster its ranks with conscripted troops.
The AA was a key participant in the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance, but its two other factions this year agreed to Chinese-brokered truces, leaving it as the last one still fighting.
While the military-run election has been widely criticized by monitors, including the United Nations, Beijing has emerged as a key backer, saying it should “restore social stability” to its neighbor.
The AA has proven a powerful adversary for the junta and now controls all but three of Rakhine’s 17 townships, according to conflict monitors.
But the group’s ambitions are largely limited to its Rakhine homeland, hemmed in by the Bay of Bengal to the west and jungle-clad mountains to the north.
The group has also been accused of atrocities, including against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority in the region.
Meanwhile, the military has blockaded Rakhine, contributing to a humanitarian crisis that has seen “a dramatic rise in hunger and malnutrition,” the World Food Program said in August.
