Military airstrike on schools in western Myanmar kills at least 18 people, most of them students

BANGKOK — An airstrike by Myanmar’s military on two private schools in a village in Myanmar has killed at least 18 people, most of them students, an armed group and local media reports said Friday.

More than 20 others were injured in the nighttime attack on the Thayet Thapin village in Kyauktaw township, the area controlled by the ethnic Arakan Army in the western Rakhine state, they said. The military has not announced any attack in the area.

Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told the Associated Press that a jet fighter dropped two bombs on Pyinnyar Pan Khinn and A Myin Thit Private High Schools.

He said most of the victims were “17- to 18-year-old students from the private schools.”

The situation in the village could not be independently confirmed, with access to the internet and cellphone service in the area mostly cut off.

Kyauktaw, 150 miles southwest of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, was captured by the Arakan Army in February last year.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. 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.

More than 7,200 people are estimated to have been killed by security forces since then, according to figures compiled by nongovernmental organizations.

The military government has recently stepped up airstrikes against the armed pro-democracy People’s Defense Force. The resistance forces have no effective defense against air attacks.

The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It began its offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and has now gained control of a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships.

Wai Hun Aung, who directs relief work in Rakhine, told the AP that those killed in the airstrike were among 30 to 40 boarders from the schools.

He said he received the information from relief workers who were in the village.

He said at least six houses near the schools were damaged, and 21 people were injured, including six who were in critical condition.

Rakhine-based local online media reported that 22 students were killed in the strike. They also posted photos and videos online showing debris and damaged buildings.

Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 that drove about 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh.