MASS MOURNING
Carpenter Maung Bu Chay said the strike killed three of his loved ones – his wife, daughter-in-law and her father.
“When someone informed me they were in the completely destroyed building, I realised they hadn’t survived,” said the 61-year-old.
“I feel resentful about their act. I feel strong anger and defiance in my heart.”
Locals hammered together plywood coffins outside a funeral hall where bodies lay inside, as mourners wept on their knees in a frenzy of grief.
Hla Maung Oo, the chair of a local committee that organises free funerals, said the death toll of 31 included a months-old infant.
“We don’t want this to happen again,” he said. “It should not happen like this.”
Rakhine state is controlled almost in its entirety by the Arakan Army (AA) – an ethnic minority separatist force active long before the military staged a coup toppling the civilian government of democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
A statement by the AA’s health department said 10 hospital patients were “killed on the spot” in the air strike on Wednesday night.
STATE OF DECLINE
The AA has emerged as one of the most powerful opposition groups in the civil war ravaging Myanmar, alongside other ethnic minority fighters and partisans who took up arms after the coup.
Scattered rebels initially struggled to make headway before a trio of groups led a joint offensive starting in 2023, backfooting the military and prompting it to bolster its ranks with conscripted troops.
The AA was a key participant in the so-called “Three Brotherhood Alliance”, but its two other factions this year agreed to Chinese-brokered truces, leaving it as the last one standing.
Source: CNA
