Myanmar military airstrike on gem-mining town kills at least 21

BANGKOK — An airstrike by Myanmar’s military on the town of Mogok, the center of the Southeast Asian country’s lucrative gem-mining industry, has killed at least 21 people including a pregnant woman, an armed opposition group, residents and Myanmar’s online media said Saturday.

The assault was the latest in a series of frequent and deadly military airstrikes, often causing civilian casualties, that have intensified in a bid to reclaim territory from resistance groups amid the civil war that erupted after the army seized power in February 2021.

The attack occurred Thursday night in Shwegu ward in Mogok township, about 70 miles northeast of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, said Lway Yay Oo, a spokesperson for the the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. The TNLA is one of the powerful ethnic militias fighting against the government army near the Chinese border.

“About 21 civilians were killed. Seven others were injured. Homes and Buddhist monastery buildings were also damaged,” Lway Yay Oo said.

Mogok, the ruby-mining center in the upper Mandalay region, was seized in July 2024 by the TNLA, a member of an alliance of ethnic militias that seized a large swath of territory in northeastern Myanmar in an offensive that began in late 2023.

The group’s statement released Friday night on its Telegram social media channel said 16 women were among those killed in the airstrike, which appeared to target a Buddhist monastery in Mogok’s Shwegu ward.

It said 15 houses were also damaged when a jet fighter dropped a bomb.

Two Mogok residents told the Associated Press on Saturday that the death toll had risen to nearly 30, though the exact number could not be independently confirmed. The residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were afraid of being arrested by the military, said the death toll was high because one of the bombed houses had been hosting visitors to the pregnant woman.

Independent online media, including Myanmar Now and Democratic Voice of Burma, released pictures and videos described as debris in the aftermath of the airstrike.

The military did not comment on the attack in Mogok.

In the past, the army has said it attacks only legitimate targets of war, describing the resistance forces as terrorists.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

The military government has stepped up airstrikes against the armed pro-democracy People’s Defense Force, and ethnic militias that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades. The resistance forces have no defense against air attacks.

The TNLA’s statement said that 17 more people including two Buddhist monks had been killed and 20 others were injured in the first two weeks of August by airstrikes in areas controlled by the group.

About 16 people, mostly truck drivers, were killed in airstrikes Monday on a convoy of trucks that were parked on the road due to heavy fighting near the town of Sagaing in central Myanmar, according to independent media reports in the country.

Opponents and independent analysts estimate that the army now controls less than half the country while maintaining a tenacious grip on much of central Myanmar, including the capital, Naypyidaw. It has accelerated counteroffensives ahead of the election it has promised to hold at the end of this year in order to retake areas controlled by opposition forces.

Critics say the elections won’t be democratic because there is no free media and most leaders of Suu Kyi’s party have been arrested. Suu Kyi was arrested in the 2021 coup.

The planned vote is widely seen as an attempt to legitimize and maintain the military’s rule.

Several opposition groups have said they would seek to derail the election.

Peck writes for the Associated Press.