Myanmar airstrike on displaced persons camp kills 12: witnesses

PONNAGYUN, Myanmar: A Myanmar military airstrike on a camp housing people displaced by the civil war killed 12 people in the westernmost state of Rakhine, witnesses and a rescue worker said on Saturday. Chit Su Wai, a 27-year-old shopkeeper, sobbed as she described how her daughter, aunt and mother were killed on Friday evening in Byar La IDP camp in Ponnagyun township, northeast of state capital Sittwe. “All I saw was their bodies scattered in pain. I could not find words to describe it. And we were lost with crying,” she said. “It has broken our family. There were no others except my family. We did not hear the sound of the fighter jet — it just came and dropped the bombs.” Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military staged a coup five years ago, provoking armed resistance from democracy activists and ethnic minority factions that have long held sway in the nation’s fringes. The western coastal state of Rakhine is among the regions worst hit by the war. Controlled almost entirely by the ethnic minority Arakan Army (AA), it has been blockaded by the military and pummelled with regular airstrikes. It was not possible to contact the Myanmar military for comment on the latest attack.