A paramotor attack on a festival and protest in central Myanmar has killed at least 24 people and wounded 47 others, a spokesperson from the exiled National Unity Government told BBC Burmese.
Around 100 people had gathered at Chaung U township on Monday evening for the Thadingyut festival – a national holiday with Buddhist roots – when a motor-powered paraglider dropped two bombs over the crowd, a local official under the anti-junta People’s Defence Force said.
The event was also a candlelight vigil protesting junta policies.
Myanmar has been at civil war since its military seized power in a 2021 coup. The UN estimates that the conflict has killed more than 5,000 civilians.
The People’s Defence Force official told BBC Burmese that during the gathering on Monday, they received information about a potential airborne attack and tried to quickly wrap up their protest – but the paramotors reached the scene earlier than they expected.
“They arrived and dropped the bomb within just seven minutes,” he said.
“When the first bomb dropped, I fell to the ground, but it hit the lower part of my knee. There were people killed beside me.”
Locals told BBC Burmese that the destruction caused by the bombs on Monday made it hard to identify the dead bodies.
“Children were completely torn apart,” another woman who had helped to organise the event told AFP. She was not at the scene but attended funerals on Tuesday, and added that they were still “collecting body parts from the ground”.
In a statement on Tuesday, Amnesty International said that the junta’s use of motorised paragliders to attack communities was part of a “disturbing trend” in the area.
BBC Burmese recently reported that the junta were increasingly opting for paramotors amid a lack of aircraft and helicopters. International sanctions over the past few years have made it harder for the junta to procure military equipment.
Joe Freeman, Amnesty International’s Myanmar researcher, said the attack “should serve as a gruesome wake-up call that civilians in Myanmar need urgent protection”.
He also called on Asean, the South East Asian regional bloc due to convene later this month, to “increase pressure on the junta and revise an approach that has failed the Myanmar people for almost five years”.
At the candlelight vigil, people protested the junta’s military conscription and the upcoming election, while advocating for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners.
Myanmar is slated to begin its general elections in December – the first vote since the junta seized power in 2021. Critics, however, say the election will not be free and fair, but will instead allow the junta to continue wielding unchecked power in the country.
