Key facts
- Myanmar military airstrikes on displacement camps in Rakhine State killed eight people over two days.
- Six people were killed and 11 injured in an airstrike on Sunday in Ponnagyun township.
- Two people were killed and two injured in a second airstrike on Monday in the same township.
- The Arakan Army and Ponnagyun Youth Association reported the incidents.
- A week prior, military airstrikes near a market in Rakhine's Kyauktaw killed 50 people.
Myanmar military airstrikes on camps for internally displaced people in Rakhine State have killed eight people over two days, according to the Arakan Army and the Ponnagyun Youth Association. This follows an aerial attack in the same state a week earlier that killed 50 people.
On Sunday, an airstrike hit a camp for displaced people in Rakhine's Ponnagyun township around 5 p.m. local time, killing six people and injuring 11 others, spokespersons for the Arakan Army and the Ponnagyun Youth Association said. On Monday morning, both groups reported another airstrike in the same township that killed two people and injured two others.
"Everyone there is a displaced civilian," said Kyaw Win Tun, a spokesperson for the Ponnagyun Youth Association, referring to the inhabitants of both hit camps. A Myanmar government spokesperson did not immediately comment on the airstrikes. The government has previously stated that the military "exercises maximum restraint to avoid civilian harm."
Reuters could not independently verify the details of the incidents. Rakhine State, which borders Bangladesh, has become a significant battleground in Myanmar's civil war, which began after the military seized power in 2021. The Arakan Army controls much of the coastal state, and the military is pushing to regain territory. The conflict has killed around 100,000 people and displaced more than 3.5 million.