Mawdaung residents stay displaced amid airstrike risks

Mawdaung Town in Tanintharyi Township, Tanintharyi Region, near the Thai border, has been captured by resistance forces, but ongoing junta airstrikes keep displaced residents from returning home.

The KNU-led resistance coalition captured Mawdaung on November 14, and residents who fled during the intense fighting are now living as internally displaced people (IDPs). Although they want to return home, they cannot because the junta continues to bomb the resistance-controlled town, an aid worker assisting them said.

“Around 8:00 am on November 15, a Y-12 aircraft bombed the town, and a fighter jet followed shortly after. Another jet carried out an airstrike later in the afternoon.

There were no civilian casualties, but the residents had already fled. They left in such a hurry that they couldn’t bring any essentials, so they’re in need of assistance. And right now, they still don’t dare to return home,” he told KIC.

Although the town is now under KNU-led resistance control, the junta continues to carry out airstrikes and the military situation in the area remains tense, a resistance fighter said.

The road section leading to Thai-Myanmar border is held by resistance forces, and although the junta has deployed hundreds of troops since late December 2024 to reclaim it, they have not yet succeeded.

In addition, near-daily skirmishes have erupted in the Theinkhun Village Tract along the Union Highway, the region’s key transportation lifeline, since December 17, 2024. Junta airstrikes have displaced residents from villages including Theinkhun, Theahpyu, and Chaunghnitpauk.