By Hsu Yee/MPA
A young novice monk and five other civilians have been killed after Myanmar military fighter jets bombed a Buddhist monastery in the country’s north-western Sagaing region on Thursday.
Local sources told the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency (MPA) that the Mingala Monastery in Thitseik Kone village, Taze Township, was struck at approximately 10:00 local time.
Witnesses described a scene of devastation, reporting that the attack was unprovoked and occurred without any active fighting in the area.
“The presiding abbot survived, but there were many young novices at the monastery,” a local resident told MPA.
The resident described a harrowing sequence of events suggesting a “double-tap” strike—a tactic where a second attack targets those responding to the first.
“The monastery sits at the junction of the north and south villages. After the first strike, parents and uncles ran to the monastery, worried about the children. They were hit [in the subsequent strikes]. The bomb blast was so powerful it physically lifted the monastery structure.”
In addition to its religious function, the monastery grounds housed a car workshop and had previously served as a sanctuary for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
While some IDPs had recently moved to new locations, avoiding a higher death toll, approximately 15 people were injured in the attack.
“Because the car workshop is hard to access from the outside, they were repairing vehicles inside the compound,” the resident explained. “Many of the injured are in critical condition. One person lost an arm, and a mechanic suffered severe spinal injuries.”
Local monitoring group Taze News reported that two fighter jets, believed to be from the Tada-U Airbase, deployed rockets and four 300lb bombs during the raid.
The attack destroys not only a place of worship but a critical community hub in the resistance stronghold of Sagaing, where the military has frequently been accused of targeting civilians and religious buildings to break support for anti-coup forces.
