Anyar bears disproportionate toll as Myanmar military mass killings claim over 450 lives

Mizzima

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded more than a dozen military-perpetrated mass killings nationwide in the first six months of 2026, leaving over 450 civilians dead, with nearly 40 percent of those deaths occurring in the dry zone — known in Myanmar as Anyar — spanning parts of Sagaing, Magway and Mandalay regions.

The toll has mounted since March, when the military reshuffled its command structure and installed General Ye Win Oo as commander-in-chief ahead of junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s move into the “presidency” the following month, with fighter jets increasingly deployed in squadrons against single targets rather than the broader, less concentrated strikes of past years.

Beyond the aerial campaign, ground operations have been equally devastating. In Magway Region’s Pakokku District, a military column of roughly 500 troops swept through Myitche town and 18 surrounding villages beginning 10 May, killing nearly 40 residents and burning approximately 1,000 homes, according to local aid workers.

The force included soldiers from a Pakokku-based light infantry division alongside pro-military Pyu Saw Htee militia fighters. More than 19,100 people fled the operation, and weeks later the displaced remained unable to return, with aid groups warning of a growing food shortage across a dozen makeshift displacement sites.

Further north in Mandalay Region’s Myingyan Township, junta troops and Pyu Saw Htee militia members killed seven civilians, including four women, during a raid on Hpetpinaing village on 2 April. Residents said soldiers opened fire as they entered the village, then used drones to target people who fled into the surrounding fields while gathering others at the village monastery. Nearly 300 of the village’s 350 houses were burned down.

Similar attacks struck Sagaing Region in the preceding weeks. In Myinmu Township’s Shwe Kyaungkan village, a paramotor-launched bombing killed nine to 10 people, including two five-year-old children, on 23 February. In Butalin Township’s Ngapayin village, an airstrike on 30 March destroyed a village clinic, killing seven to 10 patients, most of them women, according to local accounts. ACLED has forecast that such attacks will ease during the current monsoon season before resuming once it ends in October, warning that further military gains would likely expose more civilians to arrest, displacement and violence.