Dozens killed and injured in military attack on Myanmar refugee camp

At least 29 people, including children, have been killed in a military raid on a camp for internally displaced people in northern Myanmar near the border with China.

Local media reported that the camp, near the town of Laiza in Kachin state, was hit late on Monday night.

The camp is a few kilometres from the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, which is involved in a decades-long conflict with the Myanmar military.

Khon Ja, a local activist with the Kachin Peace Network Civil society group, told the Reuters news agency she had visited the local hospital and was told 29 people were dead and 59 wounded in the attack.

A spokesperson for Kachin Human Rights Watch told The Associated Press that 30 people, including 13 children, were killed with about 60 people injured.

The spokesperson, who asked to be identified only as Jacob for security reasons, said 19 adults and 13 children from the camp were killed by the air raids, which occurred at about 11pm.

Photos on social media showed rescuers retrieving bodies in the darkness and piles of bamboo and other debris.

Writing on X, previously known as Twitter, Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister of the National Unity Government (NUG), condemned the attack as a “war crime”. He said some 56 people had been injured. The NUG was established by democratically-elected politicians removed from office in the coup.

The KIA’s Colonel Naw Bu said the armed group was investigating what kind of strike had hit the camp.

“We did not hear any aircraft,” he told the AFP news agency, saying they were looking into whether the military had used a drone in the attack.

Myanmar was plunged into crisis in February 2021 after the military seized power in a coup triggering a widespread rebellion against its rule. Violence has engulfed vast swathes of the country of 53 million people with the military accused of the indiscriminate use of air raids, artillery shelling and arson forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes.

In October last year, military air raids on a KIA-organised festival in Kachin killed at least 60 people.

Kachin officers and soldiers, musicians, jade-mining business owners and other civilians were among the dead.