33 Killed As Myanmar Regime Bombs Hospital In Rebel-held Area

A Myanmar military airstrike on a crowded hospital in Mrauk-U, Rakhine State, killed 33 people and injured 76 on Wednesday, intensifying pre-election violence in areas outside regime control.

The strike came just 18 days before the junta’s widely dismissed election and on Human Rights Day.

Residents said a junta jet dropped two 500-pound bombs on Mrauk-U General Hospital at around 9 p.m.—one on a patient ward and another on the pharmacy beside it. The facility is one of the most frequented in the historic town, which the Arakan Army (AA), the armed wing of the ethnic Rakhine population, seized last February.

AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha informed local publication The Irrawaddy that the dead included 16 men and 17 women, with 27 of the wounded in serious condition. Local outlets reported that three Rohingya people and a child were among those killed, though this could not be independently verified.

After a string of battlefield losses in Rakhine, the military has escalated strikes on civilian areas, the AA claimed. “The incident clearly shows that the junta is committing war crimes,” Khaing Thukha said. “We will take revenge on the junta.”

An October assessment by the AA’s Humanitarian and Development Coordination Office (HDCO) recorded 443 deaths and 1,015 injuries from junta airstrikes between November 12, 2023, and September 20, 2024. It said aerial attacks accounted for 46% of civilian deaths in Rakhine during that period.

The HDCO cited four mass-casualty attacks in 2024 alone: a September 12 strike on a school in Kyauktaw Township that killed 20 students; an August 25 bombing in Mrauk-U that killed 14 people, including children; a May 13 strike in Rathedaung Township that killed 12; and a January 10 attack in Ramree Township that killed 26.

The military has widened its air campaign beyond Rakhine. Last Friday, a junta strike on a teashop in Sagaing Region killed at least 18 people as residents watched a Southeast Asian Games women’s football match.

Just hours before the Mrauk-U bombing, the EU, the U.K., Canada, Norway and Australia issued Human Rights Day statements condemning abuses in Myanmar and urging an immediate halt to violence.