A Myanmar junta airstrike hit a school Monday killing 22 people, including 20 children, witnesses said, despite a purported humanitarian ceasefire called to help the Southeast Asian nation recover from a devastating earthquake.
The strike hit a school in the village of Oe Htein Kwin — around 100 kilometres (65 miles) northwest of the epicentre of the March 28 quake — at about 10:00 am (0330 GMT), locals said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres is “deeply alarmed” by reports of the strike, his spokesman told reporters in New York, adding that “schools must remain areas in which children have a safe place to learn and not be bombed.”
The green school building was a shattered husk on Monday afternoon, its metal roof crumpled with gaping holes blasted through its brickwork walls.
Over a dozen abandoned book bags were piled before a pole flying the Myanmar flag outside, as parents chiselled small graves out of the hard earth to bury the shrouded bodies of their children.
“For now 22 people in total — 20 children and two teachers — have been killed,” said a 34-year-old teacher at the school, asking to remain anonymous.
“We tried to spread out the children, but the fighter was too fast and dropped its bombs,” she added. “I haven’t been able to collect all the casualty data as parents are in a rush.”
An education official from the area of the village in Sagaing region gave the same toll.
The junta information team said reports of the strike were “fabricated news”.
“There was no airstrike on non-military targets,” it said in a statement.
Myanmar has been riven by civil war since the military deposed a civilian government in 2021, with the junta suffering stinging losses to a myriad of anti-coup guerillas and long-active ethnic armed groups.
But the military pledged a ceasefire throughout this month “to continue the rebuilding and rehabilitation process” after the magnitude 7.7 quake in Myanmar’s central belt that killed nearly 3,800 people.
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