(Bangkok) The airstrike carried out Tuesday by Burmese government forces against a village in the Sagaing region, in the center of the country, left at least 170 dead according to new estimates Friday from the media and a villager participating in the cremation of bodies.
No official report of the airstrikes on the ASEAN village has been communicated, although the junta has confirmed that it carried out an operation in this area.
A villager participating in the cremation of the bodies, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, told AFP that his team had revised the death toll upwards from 130 on Thursday to 171 on Friday.
One hundred and nine men, 24 women and 38 children were killed. The attack also left 53 injured.
The BBC Myanmar Service also reported the death toll at 171, while Mandalay Free Press put the death toll at 170.
Burma’s national unity government, an opposition structure dominated by former MPs from the party of ex-leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose civilian government was overthrown by the junta in February 2021, has reported 168 deaths in a tweet on Friday.
The village of Pazi Gyi was deserted on Friday, with residents too scared to return.
The attack, carried out on the eve of celebrations for the Buddhist New Year, Thingyan, sparked international outrage.
Britain, Burma’s former colonial power, called on the UN Security Council to meet to discuss the attack.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), criticized for its inaction on the Burma crisis, on Thursday “strongly condemned” the airstrikes.
The Sagaing region is a stronghold of resistance to the junta regime. Intense fighting has been going on there for months.
The junta admitted on Wednesday to having carried out strikes in the area and claimed that some deaths were due to mines laid by rebel fighters.
The military also said on Friday that the rebels dropped four bombs from a drone that killed eight people, including five children, and injured 31 in Kywe Pon village, Sagaing region.
