Newsman: At least six children were killed and 17 wounded when army helicopters shot at a school in Myanmar, on Friday in the village of Let Yet Kone in the central Sagaing region, media reports on Monday. Some children were killed on the spot by the shooting, while others died after troops entered the village, the reports said.
The Myanmar military said it opened fire because rebels were using the building to attack its forces.
According to reports in the Mizzima and Irrawaddy news portals, army helicopters had opened fire on the school housed in a Buddhist monastery in the village.
Images posted on social media showed what appeared to be damage including bullet holes and blood stains at a school building.
In a statement, the military said the Kachin Independence Army, a rebel group, and the People’s Defence Force (PDF), an umbrella organization of armed guerrillas that the junta calls “terrorists,” had been hiding in the monastery and using the village to transport weapons in the area.
Security forces sent by helicopter had conducted “a surprise inspection” and were attacked by PDF and the KIA inside houses and the monastery, it said.
A junta spokesperson on Monday responded to questions about the air strike and defended their operations in the Sagaing region, saying that “terrorists” had entered the village and used children as “human shields”.
“They fired (at us) from there, that’s what we had to shoot them back,” the spokesperson said, claiming that two injured children were ferried on the military helicopter to a hospital for treatment.
In a statement after Friday’s violence, Myanmar’s pro-democracy shadow government, known as the National Unity Government (NUG), accused the junta of “targeted attacks” on schools.
The NUG also called for the release of 20 students and teachers it said had been arrested following the air strikes.
Documented violent attacks on schools surged to about 190 in 2021 in Myanmar from 10 the year before, according to Save the Children, a non-governmental organization.
Use of schools as bases by both the military and armed groups also increased across the country, the organization said in a report this month, disrupting education and endangering children.
The military has been accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes by the United States, the United Nations and other international bodies as it attempts to assert control over the people, who continue to wage a mass resistance campaign.
