Dozens Dead as Myanmar Military Bombs Concert, Committing ‘War Crime’

As many as 80 people have been killed after the Myanmar military bombed a music concert in the country’s north, in what is believed to be the regime’s deadliest airstrike since the coup, decried as a “war crime” by rights groups. 

Bombs were dropped by Myanmar military fighter jets at a Sunday event attended by thousands marking the 62nd anniversary of the founding of ethnic political group, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO). According to reports, among the dead were nine Kachin celebrities, including four popular singers performing at the event. 

“The junta dropped four bombs in the middle of a crowd where a thousand people were celebrating,” KIO spokesperson Col. Naw Bu told Radio Free Asia. “It is really concerning that the junta intentionally dropped bombs on an area that was not only not a battlefield, but a place where we were celebrating together with many civilians.” 

More than 100 were injured at the concert, which was held at a training ground run by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the KIO’s armed wing, some two miles from Hpakant township’s Kan Hsee village. Sam Naw, editor-in-chief of the Kachin News Organisation, said he’d never witnessed anything like it in his home state—both the scale of the deaths and the killing of well-known public figures. 

“This was a very shocking event. As much as I remember since my childhood, this is the first time such a mass killing has happened,” he told VICE World News. “The Burma army has been bombing every month, every week, in some part of Kachin State. But the number killed is one, two or three people.” 

“The bombing is not a surprise, but this mass killing is shocking.”

Sam Naw added that poor connectivity in Hpakant Township, which has been cut off from the internet by the junta since August 2021, has made establishing an exact death toll difficult even for his news organisation. At least 50 are confirmed dead, but the Associated Press, citing KIO members and a rescue worker, said the death toll had reached 80. 

Witnesses on the ground reported the Myanmar military blocking medics as they attempted to move injured victims to the nearest hospital in Hpakant town. This, combined with a lack of blood and medical supplies, means that the death toll will likely rise as people succumb to their injuries, said Sam Naw. 

The KIA has fought on and off for decades for greater autonomy in Kachin State. They are one of dozens of ethnic organisations engaged in decades-long struggles against Myanmar’s military, which seized control of the country in a 1962 coup d'etat and has maintained an iron grip on the country’s politics ever since. The military has been implicated in atrocities, war crimes and genocide through its attempts to suppress ethnic movements in all corners of the country. 

Atrocities committed by the junta have continued unabated since the Feb. 1 coup d’etat, ousting the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi last year. The junta accused her highly popular National League for Democracy party of election fraud, with their removal leading to mass protests and the formation of the People’s Defence Force (PDF), a nation-wide armed resistance composed of fighters from the pro-democracy movement. 

Attempting to quell the unrest, Myanmar’s military has intensified brutal crackdowns on protests, political opponents and resistance groups. Civilians have been targeted, and on Christmas eve last year, aid workers and children were among 35 massacred by junta soldiers in cold blood in Kayah State. Just last month, two military helicopters attacked a school, killing more than a dozen civilians, seven children among them. 

Saw Naw described Sunday’s bombing as “revenge” for repeated joint attacks by the KIA and the PDF carried out on military barracks in the region since the coup. Mark Farmaner, the director of Burma Campaign UK, said that the growing frequency of such attacks on Myanmar’s armed forces, combined with mass boycotts of military-run businesses and international sanctions on the regime, means “the mentality of the military now has changed.” 

He described the attack as a “dramatic escalation,” characterising the junta as desperately “lashing out” against its adversaries.

“In their history, they’ve always controlled when and where to fight. But that all changed last year with the coup, they don’t get to choose when and where to fight now, you see the PDFs and ethnic armed groups attacking them,” he told VICE World News.

“They’re in a fight for their very survival in a way they’ve never been before.” 

The National Unity Government, a shadow government of politicians ousted in the February coup, said the act “clearly violates international laws."

"The terrorist military has deliberately committed another mass killing with aerial bombardments by targeting a large public concert," it said in a statement.

The attack, which comes just days before a special meeting in Indonesia with regional bloc ASEAN on the escalation of violence in Myanmar, has been widely condemned by foreign embassies, the UN and rights groups. 

Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called for a renewed effort from the international community to cut off the junta from foreign currency revenue and the aviation fuel needed to carry out such bombing raids. 

“The Myanmar military’s airstrike on hundreds of concertgoers in Kachin State is an apparent violation of the laws of war, which prohibit attacks causing indiscriminate or disproportionate civilian harm,” she said in a statement. 

“For over a year and a half, the junta has carried out grave abuses against the millions of people who oppose military rule, amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes. How high does the death count need to reach before governments around the world impose consequences that will impact the junta’s behavior?”

Farmaner also called for increased sanctions, describing the junta as “weaker and more vulnerable than they’ve ever been.” 

“These jets were from foreign countries, the pilots were trained in aeroplanes from foreign countries, the aviation fuel in those jets is from foreign countries,” he said. “There’s a lot more that can be done to cut the supplies needed to carry out these kinds of attacks.”

Follow Alastair McCready on Twitter.