(CNN) — Families were still trying to recover the charred bodies and limbs of victims killed in a military airstrike on a village in central Myanmar on Wednesday, a day after one of the deadliest attacks since the junta seized power in a hit two years ago.
An eyewitness, who hid in a tunnel during the attack, described a horrific scene as he approached the site of the military airstrike: children dying, women screaming and bodies piled up on the ground.
At least 100 people, including women and children, were killed after Myanmar’s military junta shelled Kanbalu township in the central Sagaing region on Tuesday, according to the activist group Kyunhla, which was on the scene. The group said at least 20 children were killed in the attack and 50 people were injured.
Some 300 people gathered in the village of Pazigyi early Tuesday morning to celebrate the opening of a local administration office, a witness told CNN on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Families had traveled from nearby towns for the event, where tea and food were provided and coincided with the start of Thingyan’s New Year celebrations.
Like much of Sagaing, the area is not under the control of the military junta. The new municipal office was being inaugurated under the authority of the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), for the people, as part of the anti-junta resistance.
“They didn’t give us any warning,” the witness said. “Most of the villagers were inside the event, so they didn’t notice the plane.”
Just before 8 am, a junta plane bombed the town where the ceremony was taking place, eyewitnesses and local media reported. Minutes later, an Mi35 helicopter circled and fired on the town, the witness told CNN.
“When I got to the place we tried to look for people who were still alive,” he said. “Everything was terrible. People died (while being transported) on motorcycles. Children and women. Some lost their heads, limbs, hands. I saw meat on the road.”
The witness said he saw dozens of bodies after the attack, including children as young as five. He said he lost four members of his family in the bombing and that a small boy from his village was among the dead.
“I saw a lot of people come to the scene to look for their children, crying and screaming,” he said.
Around 5:30 pm the junta jets returned and fired on the same place they had bombed that morning, he said.
CNN cannot independently verify the incident, but the eyewitness account matches local media reports and the NUG.
This photo provided by Kyunhla Activists Group shows the aftermath of an airstrike on Pazigyi village in the Kanbalu township of Sagaing region, Myanmar, on April 11, 2023. (Credit: Kyunhla Activists Group/AP)
Videos and images of the aftermath, shown to CNN by witnesses and a local activist group, also show bodies, some burned and to pieces, as well as destroyed buildings, vehicles and debris.
Myanmar junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun confirmed the air strike on the village of Pazigyi, saying if there were any civilian casualties it was because they were forced to help “terrorists,” Archyde.com reported.
The junta has designated the NUG and resistance groups known as the People’s Defense Force in the country as terrorists.
“At 8 o’clock in the morning… the NUG (National Unity Government) and the PDF (People’s Defense Forces) held an opening ceremony for the civil service office in Pazigyi village,” Zaw Min Tun said. on the army’s Myawaddy TV channel.
“We launched the attack on them. We were informed that PDFs were killed in that event under attack. They oppose our government.”
The attack was internationally condemned, with a senior UN official saying global indifference to the situation in Myanmar contributed to the attack.
“The Myanmar military’s attacks on innocent people, including today’s airstrike in Sagaing, are made possible by the indifference of the world and those who supply them with weapons,” said Tom Andrews, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.
“How many Myanmar children must die before world leaders take strong and coordinated action to stop this carnage?” Andrews wondered.
The US State Department said it was “deeply concerned” by the airstrikes and called on the regime to “cease the horrific violence.”
“These violent attacks further underscore the regime’s disregard for human life and its responsibility for the grave political and humanitarian crisis in Burma following the February 2021 coup,” he said, using an alternate name for Myanmar.
The brutal regime of the military junta in Myanmar
A little over two years have passed since the military seized power, overthrew the democratically elected government and jailed its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. To crush resistance, the junta regularly carries out air and ground strikes against what it calls “terrorist” targets.
The attacks have killed civilians, including children, and have targeted schools, clinics, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. Entire villages have been burned by junta soldiers and thousands of people have been displaced in the attacks, according to local monitoring groups.
Battles between the army and resistance groups take place daily in Myanmar. These rebel groups, some of which have aligned themselves with some of the country’s long-established ethnic militias, effectively control parts of the country outside the reach of the junta.
Resistance groups and humanitarian organizations have repeatedly accused the Myanmar military of carrying out mass killings, airstrikes and war crimes against civilians in regions where fighting has taken place, charges the junta has repeatedly denied, despite the fact that there is more and more evidence.
“They are losing control of the country. They are losing ground. Things are much more unstable on the ground than ever before,” the UN’s Andrews told CNN on Wednesday. “As a result of that, they are using more and more air power, and of course, as they do that, more and more civilians are getting killed.”
On Monday, junta airstrikes hit a town in the western Chin state’s Falam township, killing nine people when bombs hit a school, according to local media Myanmar Now and The Irrawaddy.
Last week, 8,000 refugees from the southern Karen state crossed the border into Thailand to escape fighting in Myawaddy township, according to a statement from the Public Relations department of Thailand’s Tak Provincial Office, posted on Facebook.
In March, at least 22 people, including three monks, they were killed in a monastery in the southern Shan state. And a military airstrike on a school in Sagaing in September killed at least 13 peopleincluding seven children.
An eyewitness to the attack on Tuesday said that “the situation in Myanmar is worse now.”
“People are dying like dogs or cows. We have no weapons to compare with what the military has. We need the help of the international community,” she said.
— CNN’s Teele Rebane and Kocha Olarn contributed to this report.