Myanmar junta airstrike on Karenni detention centre kills detainees’ families and eight-year-old child

Mizzima

A Myanmar military airstrike targeted a prisoner-of-war (POW) detention centre in Mese Township, Karenni State, on the morning of 5 March, killing five people, all of whom were family members of captured junta personnel.

The Karenni State Interim Executive Council (IEC) confirmed that the deceased include an eight-year-old girl, three women, and one man. According to IEC Secretary U Banya Khun Aung, the facility was struck at approximately 11:00 am by roughly eight 200-pound bombs, which also left an unconfirmed number of others injured.

“It’s a detention centre, not a prison. The victims are the women and children captured from Hpasawng. An eight-year-old girl is among the deceased. There are also injuries, but we don’t have the full details yet,” IEC Secretary U Banya Khun Aung told Mizzima.

He added that the junta dropped approximately eight bombs, believed to be 200-pounders, into the facility. However, the exact type of aircraft used in the raid has not yet been confirmed.

Those held at the centre are junta military personnel and their family members who were captured during the recent battles in Hpasawng.

A previous jailbreak occurred in Mese on 18 January, when a total of 83 people comprising 76 POWs, two prison staff, and five individuals sentencing for drug-related offenses escaped with nine small arms.

The IEC stated that the Mese prison break was led by two former police officers who were serving as prison staff.

The POWs who escaped from the Mese facility were also those captured during the fighting in Hpasawng.

When revolutionary forces searched for the escapees on 18 January, eight individuals were killed during an armed confrontation, and two were recaptured alive, according to an IEC statement.

Five small arms and some ammunitions were recovered during the operation. The remaining escapees surrendered to the Thai military. Clearance operations by resistance forces were concluded on 24 January, the IEC noted.

The junta personnel who reached the Thai military were later handed back to the junta by Thai authorities via the No. 2 Myawaddy-Mae Sot Friendship Bridge on 26 January.