The Myanmar military has intensified attacks on schools run by anti-junta paramilitaries and ethnic armed groups, according to a Thailand-based NGO, in what one aid worker says is an attempt to force children to study under its education system. .
While the military began using airstrikes against schools after its successful coup in February 2021, the number of attacks increased ahead of the start of this year’s school season on June 1, the Prisoner Assistance Association said. Politicians in a statement.
Several of the airstrikes took place in the townships of Kani and Kale in the Sagaing region, as well as in the Tanintharyi region, two hotbeds of anti-junta resistance since the takeover, the June 5 statement said, qualifying such attacks as “war crimes”.
“The junta has definitely been committing war crimes like these, every day they violate what the international community has prohibited,” said a public administration official, speaking to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.
“The schools they attacked are in areas controlled by the (People’s Defense Force) and other revolutionary forces where they have no authority.”
Among the attacks was one by military helicopters on a school in Kale’s Shu Khin Thar village on June 5, which, according to a local PDF group known as CNO Upper Chindwin Region, took place while the village elders were holding a meeting. The attack killed one person and injured four others, the group said in a statement, adding that the junta ordered such attacks to “threaten families” who send their children to schools in villages run by anti-government groups. board.
The AAPP said it had also documented a June 5 attack by a junta Mi-35 helicopter on a school in Sagaing’s Kani township that injured two children and damaged the building as well as nearby houses. There was no fighting or military activities at that time.
And early in the morning of June 6, military warplanes dropped bombs on the village of San Pha Lar in Kawkareik, Kayin State, destroying the village’s school and four houses. Local media reported that the village’s teachers and students are now too scared to go to school.
A Kani township resident who is aware of the incident but declined to be named called the junta’s deliberate attack on schools “an appalling act.”
“Children have the right to freedom of education,” the resident said. “School buildings can never be military targets.”
In the months of April and May alone, the AAPP said the military carried out 31 airstrikes and fired 184 heavy artillery rounds into areas controlled by the Karen National Rebel Union’s Sixth Brigade, damaging three schools, a monastery, two Christian churches, two clinics and 387 civilian homes. The attacks forced 23,021 civilians to flee, according to the KNU.
Targeted at non-board schools
Japan Gyi, co-chair of the Conflict Displaced Persons Aid Group (Kale), told RFA that the military regime is intentionally targeting schools not under its control.
“Their education system is a complete failure and the people know it very well,” he said. “But, like all dictators, they are forcing people to study under their system and live under their leadership.”
Attempts by RFA to contact the junta’s Deputy Information Minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, for comment on the attacks on the schools went unanswered on Wednesday.
Residents of Sagaing and Magway regions and Chin and Kayin states told RFA that they are forced to build bomb shelters in schools due to the threat of air strikes and urged the international community to intervene.
Armed resistance groups and NGOs have called for a ban on companies selling jet fuel to the Myanmar military, but the junta continues to carry out airstrikes across the country.
In a statement earlier this week, Myanmar’s shadow Government of National Unity said junta forces killed 129 civilians in the month of May alone, including 19 children. The civilians were killed by junta airstrikes, artillery or while in detention, the statement said, in Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Chin, Mon and Shan states, as well as Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway and Bago regions. .
An information officer in Sagaing’s Khin-U township who declined to be named told RFA that civilian deaths have risen there and in other regions as anti-junta forces are better armed and more successful in land clashes with the military.
“Due to the junta’s aggression, innocent civilians including the elderly, pregnant women, mothers with newborn babies and children have had to flee their homes when fighting breaks out,” the official said. Many elderly residents have died trying to flee or have been burned to death in military arson attacks, he added.
According to the AAPP, the authorities have killed at least 3,622 civilians since the coup.
Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.