Dozens killed in hospital strike in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state

Original article by Guardian staff and agencies

Dozens have been killed in a military strike on a hospital in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, according to an aid worker, a rebel group, a witness and local media reports, as the junta wages a withering offensive ahead of elections beginning this month.

“The situation is very terrible,” said on-site aid worker Wai Hun Aung. “As for now, we can confirm there are 31 deaths and we think there will be more deaths. Also there are 68 wounded and will be more and more.”

The hospital in Rakhine’s Mrauk U township was struck late on Wednesday by bombs dropped by a military aircraft, said Khine Thu Kha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, which is battling the ruling junta along parts of the coastal state.

“The Mrauk U General Hospital was completely destroyed,” Khine Thu Kha told Reuters news agency. “The high number of casualties occurred because the hospital took a direct hit.”

A junta spokesperson did not respond to calls for comment.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said such attacks may amount to a war crime and called for an investigation. A spokesperson for the US state department called the reports “disturbing” and said the military government should cease violence against civilians.

Local media reports said dozens had been killed in the hospital strike, with photographs from the scene showing the shattered remains of the health facility, and shrouded bodies visible on the ground outside the facility after the attack. The Guardian could not immediately verify the images.

Soon after he heard the sound of explosions on Wednesday night, a 23-year-old resident of Mrauk U said he rushed to the scene.

“When I arrived, the hospital was on fire,” he told Reuters, asking not to be named because of security concerns. “I saw many bodies lying around and many injured people.”

The 300-bed hospital was overflowing with patients at the time of the strike, said aid worker Wai Hun Aung, as most healthcare services across swathes of Rakhine state have been suspended amid the ongoing fighting.

The junta has increased airstrikes year-on-year since the start of Myanmar’s civil war, conflict monitors say, after seizing power in a 2021 coup that ended a decade-long democratic experiment.

The military has set polls starting 28 December – touting the vote as an off-ramp to fighting – but rebels have vowed to block it from territory they control, which the junta is battling to claw back.

Rakhine state is controlled almost in its entirety by the Arakan Army (AA) – an ethnic minority separatist force active long before the military staged a coup toppling the civilian government of democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The AA has emerged as one of the most powerful opposition groups in the civil war ravaging Myanmar, alongside other ethnic minority fighters and pro-democracy partisans who took up arms after the coup.

Scattered rebels initially struggled to make headway before a trio of groups led a joint offensive starting in 2023, back-footing the military and prompting it to bolster its ranks with conscripted troops.

The AA was a key participant in the so-called “Three Brotherhood Alliance” but its two other factions this year agreed to Chinese-brokered truces, leaving it as the last one standing.

While the military-run election has been widely criticised by monitors including the United Nations, Beijing has emerged as a key backer saying it should “restore social stability” to its neighbour.

The AA has proven a powerful adversary for the junta and now controls all but three of Rakhine’s 17 townships, according to conflict monitors.

But the group’s ambitions are largely limited to their Rakhine homeland, hemmed in by the coast of the Bay of Bengal and jungle-clad mountains to the north.

The group has also been accused of atrocities including against the mostly Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority from the region.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters