Junta air strike on Chin resistance base kills five

11 Jan 2023

DMG Newsroom
11 January 2023, Thantlang, Chin State

A junta airstrike killed five ethnic Chin resistance fighters, including two women, on Tuesday in Chin State’s Thantlang, near the Indian border.

Three Myanmar military jets dropped bombs on the Mt. Victoria headquarters of the Chin National Army (CNA), the armed wing of the Chin National Front (CNF), killing the five and wounding at least 10 others, according to a source close to the CNF.

“Three jets dropped bombs on the CNF headquarters around 4:30 p.m. Two women fighters were killed immediately. Three others died in foxholes. Some 10 others were wounded,” said the CDF source.

At least seven buildings at the CNF headquarters were damaged, and some bombs landed in India’s Mizoram State, which borders Chin State, the source added.

Many business owners shuttered their shops in the Chin State capital Hakha on Wednesday and the streets were largely empty, according to Hakha residents.

“Junta troops are deployed on the Hakha-Thantlang road outside Hakha,” said one resident.

The Interim Chin National Consultative Council (ICNCC) issued a statement condemning the airstrike. The attack has only made the Chin people more determined to topple the military dictatorship, said the statement.

DMG phone calls to junta spokesman Major-General Zaw Min Tun to ask about the air attack went unanswered.

In November, rumours circulated that the regime was planning to conduct an aerial attack on the CNF headquarters. The Chin Human Rights Organization released photos that it said showed the junta conducting aerial reconnaissance of the headquarters.

The air raid came just 10 days after the regime extended a unilateral ceasefire with Myanmar’s ethnic armed organisations, covering January 1 to December 31, 2023. Junta jets reportedly carried out another aerial attack on the CNF headquarters on Wednesday, with casualties in that incident not known as of press time. 

The CNF is a signatory to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, but has been fighting the Myanmar military since its coup in February 2021.