Myanmar military acknowledges airstrike on hospital it says opposition used as base

BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military on Saturday acknowledged there was an airstrike on a hospital in the western state of Rakhine, which a local rescuer and media reports said killed more than 30 people, including patients, medical workers and children.

In a statement published by the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the military’s information office said armed groups used the hospital as their base. The groups included the ethnic Arakan Army as well as the People’s Defense Force and Bamar People’s Liberation Army, or BPLA, pro-democracy militias formed after the army coup in 2021, the statement said.

It said the military carried out necessary security measures and launched a counterterrorism operation against the hospital buildings on Wednesday. It added that those killed or injured were armed members of opposition groups and their supporters, not ordinary civilians.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army took power in 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. Many opponents of military rule have since taken up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

A senior official for rescue services in Rakhine told the Associated Press on Thursday that 34 people, including patients and medical staff, were killed and about 80 others injured when an army fighter plane dropped two bombs on the general hospital in Mrauk-U township, an area controlled by the Arakan Army. He said the hospital building was destroyed Wednesday night.

The United Nations on Thursday said in a statement that the attack was part of a broader pattern of strikes causing harm to civilians and civilian objects that are devastating communities across the country.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, said in a statement on X that he was “appalled” by the attack on the hospital that provided primary health services, saying it would disrupt access to healthcare for entire communities.

Malaysia, the current chair of the 11-member Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, condemned the airstrike on Mrauk-U hospital in a statement Saturday, calling attacks on civilians and medical facilities unacceptable and a violation of the ASEAN Charter’s principles.

It urged all parties in Myanmar to immediately halt indiscriminate violence and protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.

ASEAN’s criticism of its own members, including Myanmar, is rare.

Mrauk-U, located 326 miles northwest of Yangon, the country’s largest city, was captured by the Arakan Army in February 2024.

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 seized a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships.

The group vowed in its statement released Thursday that it would pursue accountability in cooperation with global organizations to ensure justice and take “strong and decisive action” against the military.

The group also said in separate statements that the army had launched a series of nighttime airstrikes in five towns in Rakhine since the hospital attack and that at least eight civilians were killed and 10 wounded.