At least 19 children were wounded when a primary school was hit by shelling in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, a lawmaker and a military spokesman said on Thursday.
Clashes between government troops and ethnic insurgents have intensified in Rakhine, from where tens of thousands of people have been displaced since clashes began in December 2018, bringing new chaos to a region from which more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled a military crackdown in 2017.
The Arakan Army, which recruits from the nation’s mostly Buddhist majority, has been fighting for greater autonomy for the western region from the central government.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Artillery fire hit the school in the village of Khamwe Chaung in Buthidaung Township on Thursday morning, Tun Aung Thein, a local member of the Burmese Assembly of the Union, told reporters.
He said that he did not know who was responsible.
“According to the health department, 19 students are injured and one is seriously injured,” he added.
A military spokesman put the number of wounded at 20 and blamed the insurgents for the attack.
“We medically treated the students at the nearby military post and sent five to the hospital,” Myanmar Army Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told reporters by telephone.
A spokesman for the Arakan Army denied that its fighters were responsible, saying that they did not have such artillery, and blamed government troops.
The British embassy in Myanmar issued a statement urging an end to the violence, which follows the reinstatement last week of an Internet shutdown in the region.
“The increased violence in Rakhine State over the past few days is causing misery for many of the people living there,” British Ambassador to Myanmar Dan Chugg said.
“Today’s reported shelling of a school on Myanmar’s Children’s Day, following recent deaths of women and children, highlights the impact this is having on innocent people,” Chugg added.
The statement urged all sides to do their utmost to protect civilians and called on the government to lift the Internet restrictions.
A months-long Internet blackout in four Rakhine townships — including Buthidaung — and one in neighboring Chin State had been lifted in September last year as peace talks sought to end clashes.
Officials cited “security requirements and public interest” for the reinstatement.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS