Myanmar Military Airstrike on Sagaing Monastery Kills 14, Including Three Women, During Meditation Retreat

A military airstrike on a monastery in Myanmar’s Sagaing region has left 14 people dead, including three women, after the aircraft struck a hall where more than 100 civilians had gathered for a meditation retreat during Buddhist Lent. Two rebel fighters who took part in recovering the bodies confirmed the toll from the aftermath of the strike.

Strike hit monastery hall during Friday morning prayers

The airstrike hit the monastery hall around 9:00 am (0230 GMT) on Friday, August 21, in Myaung township in central Sagaing region in Swel Le Oh village, about 75 kilometres west of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. Eleven men and three women were among the dead, according to Nway Oo Myaung, a pro-democracy fighter who helped recover the bodies from the site.

“Five dead people were from our village and the other nine were from other villages,” a second local opposition fighter said on Saturday, describing the toll among those killed in the strike.

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More than 100 people were staying in and around the monastery for a weeklong retreat marking Buddhist Lent at the time of the attack. Twenty others were wounded in the strike.

Part of a wider pattern of aerial attacks in the region

Myanmar’s military has increasingly used airstrikes to counter opposition forces, including the armed People’s Defense Forces in Sagaing region, which is a stronghold of armed resistance against the ruling junta. The resistance has no effective defense against air attacks.

The monastery attack comes a week after the UN-established Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said it had observed a notable escalation in aerial attacks by the military in the months preceding the elections held in December and January, and that the strikes have continued unabated since. Myanmar’s foreign ministry rejected the IIMM report on Sunday, stating that limited airstrikes and counterterrorism operations are aimed solely at military targets and are carried out in response to insurgents and terrorist groups in line with the rules of engagement, and that security forces exercise maximum restraint to avoid civilian harm.