20 May 2026 By Kan Htun
SITTWE, Myanmar — A devastating military airstrike has wiped out an entire neighborhood in the town of Sane, southern Rakhine State, destroying nearly 100 homes as the Myanmar military intensifies its multi-front campaign against the Arakha Army (AA).
The aerial bombardment struck the Shwe Hintha quarter of Sane—a sub-township located roughly 20 miles from the heavily contested port city of Kyaukphyu—on Tuesday afternoon, 19 May.
According to local residents, the fire rapidly consumed the tightly packed residential area because the ongoing threat of loitering fighter jets prevented anyone from attempting to put out the blaze.
“Almost 100 homes were completely reduced to ashes,” a Sane resident told MPA. “The entire neighborhood is just gone. When the bombs first hit and the fires started, people were too terrified of secondary airstrikes to go outside and fight the flames, so everything burned to the ground.”
While the scale of property destruction is immense, the exact number of civilian casualties remains unverified as thousands of residents continue to flee the urban center under a heavy barrage of combined artillery and naval gunfire.
The destruction of Sane comes amid a major military push to protect the junta’s dwindling assets in Kyaukphyu. Facing structural defeats on the ground, the military has increasingly relied on its naval and air superiority to push back against AA advancement.
“The military is launching multi-layered assaults from both the sea and the sky to reclaim territories now falling under AA administration,” a political observer from northern Rakhine stated. “Targeting an area like Sane with heavy aerial bombs seems deliberately calculated to instill psychological terror among the civilian populace and shatter their morale.”
The town has been repeatedly targeted in recent days. On 13 May, two junta fighter jets launched strikes near the nearby villages of Hmyaw Chaung and Sabay Chaung. On the same day, junta warships positioned off the Kyaukphyu coast unleashed a heavy artillery barrage, killing one civilian and wounding six others.
The frontline has grown exceptionally volatile around the strategic Taung Maw Oo naval base, a critical junta outpost in Kyaukphyu.
Local sources confirmed that fierce close-quarters combat occurred near the base on 18 May, resulting in heavy military casualties. Local residents reported seeing at least 20 severely wounded junta soldiers being evacuated to Kyaukphyu hospital following the clash.
As the military continues to pour fresh reinforcements into the sector to hold its naval positions, the escalation threatens to drag surrounding civilian areas deeper into a scorched-earth conflict, leaving thousands of displaced families stranded with no safe zones left in southern Rakhine.
