A number of people, including a five-year-old child and seven other children, are dead after State Administration Council (SAC) fighter jets bombarded the village of Wei Lu, situated between Matupi and Paletwa townships in southern Chin State.
“A shell landed right in the middle of the village, instantly killing many residents. Our troops are investigating the attack on the village, but as far as we know, 13 people have been killed,” said Lay Pyay, battalion commander for Daai Chinland Defence Force (CDF).
He didn’t know how many people were injured when the two fighter jets attacked Wei Lu at 7 pm on November 15 but said many homes were destroyed. There were also rumours that two Arakan Army (AA) soldiers were among the deceased, but the officer couldn’t confirm this information.
“There are many casualties in the village, therefore the number of people killed is likely to increase,” said Salai Ai Bax, the Daai CDF’s general secretary, explaining the difficulties of getting the wounded to a clinic or hospital for medical care.
There were about 60 houses in Wei Lu before the attack. The village was popular with different ethnic armed groups in the area. AA and soldiers from CNF often stopped there when transporting rations to their camps. But Salai Ai Bax couldn’t say exactly why the regime decided to target the small village with fighter jets.
On Thursday, AA has taken over the town of Pauktaw and a number of army bases in Rakhine State to the south after an informal ceasefire with SAC recently unraveled.
AA is also fighting regime troops in northern Shan State alongside fellow members of Northern Brotherhoods Alliance.
Since the alliance announced its 1027 Operation in late October, over 130 bases and nine towns have been captured by resistance groups in states and regions of Burma.
The well-coordinated offensives demonstrated over the last several weeks among the different resistance forces have been unprecedented since the coup and even in the last seven decades, as various ethnicities have been fighting for autonomy.