Nearly 30 dead on Myanmar-China border after attack on Kachin army

Twenty-nine people were killed when junta air forces dropped a bomb in northern Kachin state, a Kachin Independence Army information officer told Radio Free Asia Tuesday. 
Col. Naw Bu said all of the victims were internally displaced people living in the mountainous border area between Kachin state and China.
He said the junta was targeting the Kachin Independence Army’s headquarters in the town of Laizar in the attack, which happened after 11pm on Monday.
At least 10 minors were among the dead, and 56 injured people have been taken to a nearby hospital. Officials in Laizar are still searching for the missing and dead and the identities of those killed is still being investigated. 
Bodies lined up at the Munglai Hkyet Internally Displaced Persons camp near the Kachin Independence Army"s headquarters in Laizar town, Kachin state after an airstrike on the night of Oct. 9, 2023. Credit: Awng Ja (Simsa Kasa Multimedia)
Col. Naw Bu told RFA that this was not the junta’s usual style of attack. Although the military often fires at Laizar with heavy artillery from Bum Re Bum and Hka Ya Bum camps, he believes this bombing could have been carried out by a drone. 
“It was not heavy artillery. Something like a plane or a drone. If it was by a jet, its sound could be heard,” he told RFA, adding that he wasn’t sure what type of bomb had been dropped yet. 
Junta Social Affairs Minister and Kachin State spokesperson Win Ye Tun told RFA he could not comment on the situation because he did not know about it. 
This attack comes nearly a year after the military dropped four bombs into a crowd in Hpakant as the Kachin Independence Organization celebrated its 62nd anniversary. At least 50 were killed and 100 were wounded in the airstrike. 
The Kachin Independence Organization is the political wing of the Kachin Independence Army, which has clashed with the Myanmar military for decades.
The village where internally displaced people in Kachin State are sheltering is only 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) away from Laizar. 
The border area was a site of heavy fighting in late June of this year when junta forces attempted to capture Laizar using heavy artillery.
According to a U.N. report, as of late September Kachin state had over 93,000 internally displaced people. Waingmaw township, where Laizar is located, is home to over 20,000 of them living in some two dozen camps.  
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.


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