Girl, 14, killed by junta shelling in eastern Bago Region
The child was just the latest to lose her life in recent months due to indiscriminate attacks in the area
Junta shelling killed a 14-year-old girl and injured four others in eastern Bago Region’s Pyu Township on Tuesday, according to resistance sources.
The girl, ninth grader Yu Yati Khaing, suffered a fatal injury after a heavy artillery shell hit the village of Kyaw Hla at around 5pm, an officer of the Pyu Township People’s Defence Team (PDT) told Myanmar Now.
“A shell fell on the village at around 1pm, but no one was injured by that one. Then a second shell landed at around 5pm, and the girl was wounded in the abdomen. She died before she could receive treatment,” said the PDT officer.
Troops stationed in the town of Kanyutkwin were responsible for the incident, he added.
The other victims were members of a household living in the village of Nandamate. Further details were unavailable at the time of reporting, but a member of the Bago Region People’s Defence Force confirmed that at least of the injured was a child.
Children are often among the victims of the junta’s indiscriminate bombing in eastern Bago Region, which includes territory controlled by Brigade 3 of the Karen National Liberation Army, an armed wing of the Karen National Union.
On October 3, a nine-year-old girl and a 46-year-old man were injured by a heavy artillery shell in the village of Ngatoekhin in Mone Township, Nyaunglebin District.
Exactly one month earlier, a 12-year-old child was killed by a junta airstrike on Kyet Tet Nyaung Pin, another village in Mone Township. Six other civilians were also injured in the attack, the Karen Human Rights Group reported at the time.
In late August, a woman and her seven-year-old daughter both died while attempting to escape an artillery assault on the village of Pyin Ye Gyi in Nyaunglebin Township. At least four others were injured.
Earlier the same month, two boys were among four people killed by shelling along the Sittaung River in Kyaukkyi Township, Nyaunglebin District.
In late July, a blast at a public rest stop in In Pin Thar, a village in Pyu Township located on the Yangon-Naypyitaw highway, left four children dead and one gravely injured.
No group claimed responsibility for planting the explosive.
