Junta Airstrikes Must Be Stopped

Unceasing in its brutality, the Myanmar military junta continues to conduct widespread and systematic airstrikes on the Myanmar people with unrelenting intensity. Targeted airstrikes on villages, public areas, internally displaced person (IDP) camps, schools, medical facilities, and religious buildings, continually demonstrate the junta’s vicious mission to inflict ultimate suffering and terror on the Myanmar people. Sustained and committed effective action from the international community is urgently needed to coordinate embargoes on aviation fuel, arms, and dual-use goods imported to Myanmar, and impose targeted sanctions on suppliers of these weapons of devastation.

Across Myanmar this week, junta airstrikes on civilian areas caused widespread death, destruction, and displacement. On 22 March, a junta airstrike on a medical clinic in Gangaw Township, Magway, killed 11 people including five children. Bombing medical facilities is not only clear contravention of international humanitarian law, but an inexplicably cruel act of brutality that is repeated time and time again across Myanmar. Throughout 23-25 March, civilians in central Myanmar were targeted by persistent junta airstrikes—on Taze Township, Sagaing Region, killing four people; on Manlae Village, Natogyi Township, Mandalay Region, killing three members of one family; and on Kyaukgyi and Poonagyn Townships, Bago Region, killing four people. Further, as the junta attempts to take Falam Township, Chin State, from resistance forces, it is civilians who bear their violence with reports indicating 500 bombs were dropped on the township in just one week, forcing 10,000 residents to flee.

The scale of junta airstrikes has been increasing year on year since the February 2021 coup attempt, with 2,504 airstrikes recorded throughout 2024. Since the attempted coup to the end of 2024, Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica has verified 2,224 civilians as killed by airstrikes, although the numbers are likely far greater. Mass killing incidents such as that in Gangaw Township on 22 March, are occurring with an increasing and terrifying frequency. Behind this rise in mass casualty incidents is the junta’s increased proclivity to attack high-density civilian areas­ such as markets, medical clinics, schools, monasteries, mosques, and churches—which are designated protected objects under international law. Even places where displaced people seek shelter and safety having already fled junta violence—temporarily in monasteries or churches, or in IDP camps—are targeted with airstrikes. These civilian-populated places are targeted in full knowledge that they hold no military strategic value and are likely occupied by civilians, revealing the incomprehensible depths of the junta’s depravity. Nowhere is safe from junta airstrikes and this cultivation of terror upon the civilian population is an intentional tactic to coerce and abuse through fear.

As ethnic revolutionary organization and other resistance forces continue to successfully re-capture territory across swathes of Myanmar, the junta faces dwindling manpower, morale, strategic territory, and resources. In response, bombarding Myanmar people with airstrikes is a strategy of desperation while it continues to face losses on the ground. Retaliatory attacks with aerial bombardment on civilian areas frequently follow armed clashes and losses to resistance forces on the ground. Collective punishment is thus inflicted on the people, causing deaths, immense destruction to infrastructure and housing, and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee. Usually reliant on fighter jets and Mi-19 helicopters, the junta has diversified into alternative military technology to conduct airstrikes. Drone usage has increased exponentially over the past year, used to conduct surveillance and drop bombs. With the first recorded use of paramotors on 25 December 2024, this new technology to conduct airstrikes has also proven deadly and difficult for resistance forces to repel. In an interview given to The Irrawaddy, a defector of the Myanmar military reported that many junta aircraft are damaged or defective, and shortages of aircraft means diverse technologies are employed to maintain their campaign of terror on the Myanmar people.

The international community must no longer ignore the wealth of stark evidence before its eyes of the junta’s atrocities and their crimes under international law, primarily through its relentless airstrikes inflicting ceaseless suffering on the Myanmar people. Inaction and hesitation is enabling the junta to continue this cascade of terror. Coordinated, targeted, and sustained sanctions against the military junta and any actor guilty of supplying them weapons or support, must urgently occur to disrupt supply chains and financially isolate the junta. With airstrikes the most-deadly form of attack on civilians—including by drones and paramotors—a global embargo on aviation fuel, as well as arms and dual-use goods, must be implemented and sustained to stop the bombing. In addition, the international community must respond to the desperate need for humanitarian aid by supplying it through local humanitarian responders, community-based and civil society organizations, and through cross-border channels to ensure it reaches those most in need. With the Myanmar people remaining resolute to build an inclusive federal democratic society free from military tyranny from the ground up, the international community must support the people by cutting the junta’s funds, supplies, and increase political support and resources from the outside lest the violence continue unabated.

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[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.

Progressive Voice is a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 transitioning to a rights-based policy research and advocacy organization called Progressive Voice. For further information, please see our press release “Burma Partnership Celebrates Continuing Regional Solidarity for Burma and Embraces the Work Ahead for Progressive Voice.”