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14 killed in strike on Myanmar Buddhist monastery during meditation retreat: Report
The attack is the latest in a series of frequent and deadly aerial strikes targeting armed pro-democracy forces and ethnic armed groups in Myanmar.
An airstrike on Friday by Myanmar’s military on a Buddhist monastery in the country's central Sagaing region killed 14 people who were taking part in a week-long mediation retreat, news agency AP reported, quoting an opposition group and a resident.
The attack is the latest in a series of frequent and deadly aerial strikes targeting armed pro-democracy forces and ethnic armed groups in the country. The strikes often cause civilian casualties.
The attack occurred on Friday at 9am in Swel Le Oh village in Myaung township, about 75 kilometres (45 miles) west of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, according to Nway Oo, a spokesperson for the Civil Defence and Security Organisation of Myaung Township, or CDSOM.
Nway Oo said 14 people, including three women, were killed and 20 others were wounded when a jet fighter dropped a bomb in the compound of the village’s monastery.
The jet fighter dropped two bombs 15 minutes apart, with the second bomb damaging a house near the monastery where more than 100 people were on a week-long retreat during Buddhist Lent, the AP report added, citing a local villager.
The villager, who lost a relative in the airstrike, said that people fled to a nearby community after burying the bodies of the victims.
Myanmar military ‘deliberately’ targets civilians, UN report finds
According to the United Nations Human Rights Council-appointed investigators, Myanmar's military has carried out a sustained campaign of deliberate attacks on civilians – including airstrikes on homes, schools and camps for displaced people, alongside arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence.
The findings come in the annual report of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), covering July 2025 to June 2026, published last Tuesday.
“One of the areas that we're concentrating on is, because of the suffering that's happening in Myanmar, are the airstrikes [against communities] that are occurring...We're looking at the command structure and how the orders would be given for such airstrikes,” the head of the mechanism, Nicholas Koumjian, said.
"In particular, there are many airstrikes targeting and hitting schools. Children are often the victims of these airstrikes, and also hospitals. So our team is collecting that evidence of where it has occurred, the kind of munitions that are used."
Myanmar has been engulfed in conflict since the military seized power in February 2021, overthrowing the civilian government and arresting top leaders, including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.
The coup also triggered nationwide protests and subsequent armed resistance movements that now control large swathes of the fractured country.
