Airstrike on Rakhine market kills 18 as junta steps up attacks in AA-held areas

At least 18 people were killed and more than a dozen injured after a Myanmar military airstrike hit a market in Yoe Ngu village, Ponnagyun Township, Rakhine State, on Tuesday afternoon, according to local sources.

The village lies about seven miles north of Ponnagyun town, an area under the control of the Arakan Army (AA) since 2024. Residents said bombs fell at around 2pm, setting fire to a row of market stalls and trapping shopkeepers and customers inside.

“Bombs struck the centre of the village, leaving many residents too afraid to remain,” a representative of the Ponnagyun Youth Association, who had visited the site of the attack, told Myanmar Now. “There is no AA outpost in the village. The village is only inhabited by local residents and displaced people.”

Among the dead were a 70-year-old man, a six-year-old girl and three teenagers aged 13, 14 and 15, the AA said in a statement. At least three other girls, aged between four and seven, were reported injured.

Local volunteers told Myanmar Now that fear had spread through the area in the aftermath of the strike, prompting some families to flee. A representative of the Ponnagyun Youth Association, who visited the site, said there was no AA outpost in the village and that it was inhabited only by civilians and displaced people.

“The military wants to instill insecurity and fear in people’s daily lives under the Arakan Army’s control,” Pe Than, a well-known Rakhine political analyst said. “It aims to divide communities and force more people to flee. But things are not unfolding the way they expect.”

The Humanitarian and Development Coordination Office, linked to the United League of Arakan, the political wing of the AA, condemned the attack as a deliberate assault on civilians and described it as a war crime.

Elsewhere in Rakhine, two men were injured in a drone strike on a temporary displacement camp in Kyaukphyu Township on Monday, according to local media.

The military has not commented on the latest incidents. The AA says that since renewed fighting began in November 2023, more than 1,100 civilians have been killed and over 2,000 injured in Rakhine State.

Rakhine analyst Pe Than pointed out that the military was seeking to instil fear in areas under AA control through the use of air power.

“It aims to divide communities and force people to flee, but it will only leave a blood-stained record in history.”