Rakhine School Massacre Met With Chorus of Condemnation
A chorus of condemnation both from Myanmar and abroad has greeted the junta’s bombing of two private schools in Rakhine state’s Kyauktaw Township on Sept. 12 that killed 20 youngsters.
The ethnic United League of Arakan (ULA) on Saturday blasted the arial massacre as a war crime.
The ULA, whose armed wing the Arakan Army (AA) has seized most of Rakhine, also urged the international community to take “effective and decisive action against the brutal regime.”
In the small hours of last Friday, a regime jet dropped two 500-lb bombs on the two private boarding schools of Pyinnya Pan Khinn and Amyin Thit in Thayat Tabin in AA-controlled Kyauktaw Township.
The airstrikes killed 20 students aged 15 to 21 and injured 22 others while destroying school buildings as well as civilian homes nearby, the ULA said.
“We strongly condemn the regime’s war crimes and crimes against humanity as the regime continues to commit heinous acts of mass killing against innocent civilians across the country with impunity,” the rebel group added.
The group vowed to submit the evidence of the regime’s war crimes to international organization and “seek tirelessly to ensure justice for the crimes committed against a generation of Arakan youth.”
“We will take strong retaliatory measures against those who committed, ordered or were involved in these crimes,” it added.
Overseas, UNICEF expressed “extreme concern” over the massacre.
The UN children’s agency said the attack “adds to a pattern of increasingly devastating violence in Rakhine State, with children and families paying the ultimate price.”
“Children are losing their lives in the very spaces meant to protect them—their homes, schools, and neighborhoods,” it said in a statement, calling for an end to violence against children and for schools, dormitories, homes, and the essential services they rely on to be safeguarded.
The statement declined to name the perpetrator of the attack, and instead called on “all parties” to uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians including children.
From Jan. 8 to Aug. 25, the regime conducted four airstrikes on AA-held towns and villages, killing 89 civilians, including 28 family members of junta soldiers held prisoners of war, according to ULA.
In May, the regime used cluster bombs to attack a school run by civilian National Unity Government (NUG) in Depayin Township, Sagaing Region, killing 22 schoolchildren aged seven to 16 and two volunteer teachers. Another 102 people, mostly schoolchildren and teachers, were injured.
The regime denied responsibility for the airstrike, while junta-backed pro-military lobbyists claimed the attack targeted “terrorists” who were manufacturing bombs in the school.
Between January 2023 and August 2025, the regime conducted 3,402 airstrikes that killed 3,689 people including 546 children, according to the parallel National Unity Government (NUG).
The airstrikes also destroyed 289 schools, 112 clinics and hospitals, and 512 religious buildings.
