The Burmese military junta recognized this Wednesday responsibility for the air attack the day before against an act of opposition to the military regime, which is estimated to have left more than a hundred dead, including dozens of children, an escalation of violence condemned by the community international.
Coup regime spokesman Zaw Min Tun told the military-owned Myawaddy TV channel today that it led the attack on the people’s defense forces (PDF), an opposition movement formed mostly by young people after the riot of February 1, 2021.
“Probably, civilians forced to support them also died,” declared the general, who, in line with military rhetoric, branded the PDF as “terrorists.”
The Burmese Air Force bombed early Tuesday an inauguration ceremony for an administrative office linked to the opposition National Unity Government (NUG), the political arm of the PDF and which declares itself the legitimate authority of the country after the coup, in the town of Pazigyi, in the northwestern region of Sagaing, one of the main rebel strongholds.
A NUG spokesman confirmed to Efe on Tuesday the death of at least 50 people, while different local media consider that more than a hundred may have died, including dozens of children and women, since it is estimated that up to 150 people were able to attend the event. , in which food was served for the residents of the town.
“We carried out the attack during the inauguration ceremony. PDF members were killed. They are the ones who oppose the government of this country,” he told the Zaw Min Tun propaganda network.
According to what the NUG spokesman told Efe, the fighters bombed the town again when volunteers were looking for survivors among the rubble and removing the lifeless bodies, many of them mutilated.
The attack is in line with the harangues of the leader of the junta, General Min Aung Hlaing, on March 27, when he warned that he would “firmly appease” the resistance, with a focus on the NUG, partly made up of former deputies. of the ousted civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the PDFs.
The escalation of violence by the Burmese Army (the Tatmadaw), accused of crimes against humanity by the UN for its attacks against the Rohingya minority, coincides with information from the ground that ensures that it has not been able to control more than a quarter of the country since The hit.
The PDFs, largely young women who left their lives behind to train in armed struggle with ethnic minority guerrillas who have been fighting the Army for decades, have been increasing their warfare skills in an unexpected turn by the Tatmadaw, who experts say have further increased its brutal methods accordingly.
The international community, including the US, the European Union and the UN, have condemned the Sagaing attack, one of the worst massacres since the coup, which ended a decade of democratic transition and plunged the country into a spiral of violence and semi-anarchy.
The UN rapporteur for Burma, Thomas Andrews, denounced in March that more than 3,000 civilians have been killed, 1.3 million have had to flee their homes and 16,000 have become political prisoners since the coup, including Suu Kyi.
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