KIA vows to step up fight against junta after scores killed in airstrikes on Kachin celebration

By DMG 25 Oct 2022

DMG Newsroom
25 October 2022, Sittwe 

The Kachin Independence Organisation/Kachin Independence Army (KIO/KIA) has released a statement on the junta’s aerial bombardment of a KIA-organised event on October 23, saying it will turn sorrow into strength and step up the revolution against Myanmar’s military regime. 

Scores of people including KIA officers, Kachin artists and civilians were killed when three junta jet fighters dropped bombs on an event marking the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the KIO at ANang Pa Village in Kachin State’s Hpakant Township, an area controlled by KIA Brigade 9, on Sunday evening. 

“The atrocities of the regime will be recorded in history, and we will turn the sorrow into strength for the revolution,” said Tuesday’s KIO statement. 

“ANang Pa is not a KIA outpost. Many civilians and KIO staff died, and people were shocked and saddened as the Myanmar military, despite its knowledge that ANang Pa is just a camp with a few eateries where local travellers take a break, attacked there with the deliberate intention of causing mass casualties,” added the statement. 

The military attempted to justify its aerial assault by claiming that there were only KIA members and illegal mining businessmen in ANang Pa. 

More than 80 people were killed and over 100 were injured by the junta air raid, according to KIA sources. 

“We can confirm more than 80 deaths this morning,” a KIA Brigade 9 source told DMG on Tuesday morning. “We have retrieved their bodies. And those injured are being treated with whatever medicines available.” 

The regime was still blocking access to the road at Kan Zee Village as of Tuesday morning, making it impossible for social organisations and Kachin civil society groups to transport the injured to Hpakant town for medical treatment. 

“We are not yet allowed to enter the area. Kachin civil society organisations are asking [junta officials] to allow them to enter the village. We are concerned about the situation of those injured as they still can’t receive proper treatment,” said a member of a Hpakant-based social organisation. 

Ethnic armed organisations including the Arakan Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army issued a letter of condolence. The Karen National Union and Chin National Front also issued statements condemning Sunday’s junta airstrikes, as did a number of diplomatic missions in Myanmar.