Myanmar’s military regime is increasingly bombing local markets alongside schools and hospitals, with Rakhine State suffering the heaviest toll, according to an analysis published on 1 October by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, which found the junta’s latest offensive against the Arakan Army (AA) has failed to regain significant territory despite its intensity.
Military airstrikes against civilians and infrastructure have been systematic since the 2021 coup and routinely escalate when the junta suffers battlefield losses, said Jesua Lynn, ACLED’s Myanmar analyst.
ACLED has recorded 41 airstrikes on local markets since January 2022, when the military first bombed a village market in Katha Township, killing at least 145 civilians.
Rakhine State accounted for at least 11 of those attacks and 49 deaths even before 28 September, when airstrikes on the “India Market” and the Kissapanadi Bridge in Kyauktaw Township killed at least 50 people and injured 57 others, including shoppers, passersby and cargo labourers.
The Kyauktaw strike came weeks after the regime launched Operation 4926 on 4 September, a combined air, artillery and ground campaign to retake territory from the AA, the ethnic armed group that controls most of Rakhine State.
The regime has pushed its strikes into towns such as Mrauk-U, Rathedaung and Kyauktaw in an effort to disrupt the AA’s governance and administration, according to ACLED.
Attacks on areas far from active fighting suggest a wider strategy of pressuring the AA by disrupting civilian life and the systems through which it governs, Lynn said.
With the AA vowing retaliation and the post-monsoon season favouring the junta’s air and drone operations, ACLED expects further confrontation in the coming months, raising the risk to civilians without producing decisive territorial change.
Mizzima