2023-04-26 06:00:09
- Por Moe Myint, Grace Tsoi y Joel Guinto
- London and Singapore
image source, courtesy image
Soe Nandar Nwe, victim of one of the latest airstrikes in rural Myanmar.
“The earth shook,” says Win Zaw. The rancher remembers the recent sunny morning when he heard a military plane approaching. Then an explosion.
He did not believe that his people, Pa Zi Gyi, in northeast Myanmar, could have been hit. But when he phoned his wife, he found out that the military had bombed the place where a group of locals had gathered for a meal.
Soe Nandar Nwe, her 7-year-old daughter, was there.
Zaw ran to the scene of the attack. He tried to look for her in the middle of the massacre. “I looked for my daughter among the smoke and charred remains. I only thought of finding her.”
He was looking for traces of her favorite clothing: a white flowered dress she was wearing that day. But Zaw found neither a the girl nor a her mother in lawwho was with her daughter when the bomb fell.
Witnesses to the explosion told the BBC that a military plane dropped a bomb where people had gathered to eat. A helicopter gunship then fired on the town for 20 minutes.
“I still can’t believe it,” says Zaw. “How could they do this to defenseless and vulnerable little children?”
image source, EPA
The attack destroyed the village of Pa Zi Gyi.
Myanmar, two years later
Two years after the coup in Myanmar, the country is submerged andin a civil war, and the military are gaining more and more space in their attempt to reduce resistance to ashes.
In the attack on Tuesday April 11 referred to by Zaw, one of the deadliest to date, 168 men, women and children died. But it is not unique. Last year, the military attacked a school, killing several children. That same month, a bombing attack on a concert killed another 50 people.
Between February 2021 and January 2023, there were at least 600 airstrikes by the militaryaccording to a BBC analysis with the Location Data Project (Acled).
The civil war has claimed thousands of lives, displaced 1.4 million people and left almost a third of the country’s population in need of humanitarian aid. The United Nations has declared that the military regime could be responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Villages in rural areas are the most affected. The attacks are directed at them, because the military believes that they are aligned with the resistance, which is now made up of armed ethnic groups.
The regime said it had specifically targeted the town of Pa Zi Gyi in response to the fact that an informal network of local militias, known as the Popular Defense Forces, or PDF, had opened an administrative office there.
The event was being organized to celebrate the opening of the office, but for little Soe Nandar Nwe it was just an opportunity to show off her favorite flowery dress.
daughter of my heart
“I have never called my daughter by name, but always daughter of my heart. She adored me,” says Win Zaw.
One of the things they liked the most was riding a bike together.
The night before the bombing, Soe Nandar Nwe insisted on sleeping next to her father. Her last memory of her was when he kissed her before leaving for work the next morning. She was still sleeping.
Win Zaw says that her daughter loved helping her friends study. “We wanted him to grow and achieve great things for the country, because our country is going through a very difficult time.”
That morning, Zaw imagined coming home and listening to the music at full volume, because the village hadn’t held a wedding since the 2021 coup that ousted Myanmar’s elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
They would go to the celebration event together. But she was so excited to go that her mother dropped her off at the place with her grandmother ahead of schedule. When the attack began, they were under a makeshift tent in the center of celebrations.
This was the first time an airstrike had hit Pa Zi Gyi, although the Sagaing region has been the target of several such attacks.
image source, courtesy image
Hnin Yu Wai, 3 years old, another of the bombing victims.
Ye Naing lost her parents and her 3-year-old daughter Hnin Yu Wai, whom she had helped apply thanakha, the tree-bark face paint traditionally worn in celebrations that morning.
The bomb was dropped while the children were eatingsays Ye Naing, who suffered shrapnel wounds. “My daughter shouldn’t even have finished a small bowl of rice.”
“It seemed like the end of the world or something worse. But I was not afraid. It was inhumane and brutal. I will defend myself, along with the people of the country, as long as they continue to oppress and kill innocent people,” he says.
In almost all of Pa Zi Gyi’s 200 households, families lost a loved one that day. The local people say that some survivors left their homes and went into hiding for fear of more attacks. Others are disturbed by loud noises, such as motorcycle engines.
“We are poor peasants. Don’t just watch how they kill us! How many more innocent lives must be sacrificed for them to act?” says Win Zaw, addressing General Min Aung Hlaing, leader of the military government: “I will never forgive him.” .
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