Loikaw, 2 December
The military council, which has suffered losses in the battle, asserted that if the armed resistance forces attack civilian buildings, those buildings will be turned into military structures.
The junta spokesperson, Major General Zaw Min Tun, has accused the armed resistance forces of using public buildings, education, and health facilities to protect themselves during the fighting in Rakhine and Karenni states.
On November 30, the military council expressed its view on civilian buildings in connection with the incident that occurred near the high school in Loikko town in Karenni state and near the high school in Pauktaw town in Rakhine state.
Major General Zaw Min Tun, on the other hand, said in the propaganda newspapers, “Those are civilian buildings under military situation and laws until the enemy uses them. If the enemy used those buildings and fired on them from there, they would be turned into military structures.”
CDM Captain Lin Htet Aung said, “The military wants to cover up what they destroyed after stationing in public buildings.”
According to a report published in October by the research organization Nyan Lin Thit, the military council’s airstrikes damaged 26 hospitals, 54 schools, and 86 religious buildings and killed more than 680 civilians between February 2021 and August 2023.
Since the coup, the regime troops have been stationed in schools, hospitals, and religious buildings in areas where resistance forces are active.
However, military council began deploying troops to schools and universities amid the operations of resistance forces during the three years of the coup.
The director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, Ko Banyar, told Than Lwin Times, “There are incidents of attacks on revolutionary forces because the military council uses public buildings as defense.”
The junta troops stationed on the Loikaw university campus were not attacked outright by the revolutionary forces on November 11, but were forced to raise the white flag and were taken as prisoners of war.
According to information released on December 1st by the Progressive Karenni People’s Force, the military council’s attack in Karenni destroyed more than 40 religious buildings, 20 schools, more than 2,190 homes, and 14 hospitals and clinics as of November 30 of this year since the coup.
Looking at the recent fighting in the region, it is clear that the military council is conducting significant airstrikes on schools, health facilities, hospitals, and civilian homes.
In the second week of August, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) announced that it had received a large amount of evidence that the junta army had designated schools and monasteries as enemy targets and carried out airstrikes on them.
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