Myanmar’s junta bombed a monastery in the country’s northwest on Saturday, killing five people, including children, just one day before it publicly announced that a recent earthquake had destroyed almost 10,000 religious buildings across the country.
As the United Nations called for $275 million in aid for quake-hit Myanmar, neighboring China pledged 1 billion yuan (US$137 million), eclipsing the offers from other international donors.
Junta airstrikes in northwestern Myanmar killed more than 30 civilians, including an entire family, residents and officials told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.
A rebel army and allied forces near Myanmar’s northwestern border with India have seized towns that were previously under the junta control, sources told Radio Free Asia.
International aid groups who want to provide assistance to earthquake-hit areas of Myanmar must gain prior approval from junta authorities, said a top military official, as the death toll surpassed 3,500.
Rescuers in Myanmar and Thailand continued their search for survivors Monday, saying signs of life were still being detected following the 7.7 magnitude quake that rocked both countries three days earlier.
Myanmar junta bombed a medical clinic in Magway region Saturday morning, killing 11, including medical staff and children, despite no recent battles between junta forces and anti-junta militias in the area, residents told Radio Free Asia.
Authorities in Myanmar forcibly recruited more than 70 young men from a single town in the south-central Ayeyarwady region, residents said Monday, as the junta launched a new round of training for the country’s draftees.
Myanmar’s military killed 40 civilians, including Buddhist monks and children, in airstrikes in northern Myanmar as it tries to pound its enemies into submission, insurgents told Radio Free Asia on Monday.
Thailand’s move to cut off electricity, fuel and internet service to an area across the border in Myanmar rife with scam centers is hurting ordinary people more than the crime syndicates it was trying target, residents told Radio Free Asia.