AIR strikes by Myanmar’s military on a village under the control of the pro-democracy resistance in the country’s north-west have killed at least 17 civilians, including nine children, local residents and a human rights group said on Sunday.

The attacks on Kanan village in Sagaing region’s Khampat town, just south of the Indian border, also wounded about 20 people, they said.

A local resident who helped carry out rescue work told reporters on Sunday that a jet fighter dropped three bombs on the village, about 170 miles north-west of Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city on buildings near the village school.

Myanmar is wracked by violence that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. 

This came after peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

The military government denied responsibility for the attack, claiming that it was false news spread by Khit Thit Media, an independent online news service sympathetic to the anti-military resistance.

The report by the state-run MRTV television in its Sunday night news broadcast cited an unnamed official from the area as saying there had been no plane flying in the area on Sunday morning.

But over the last two years the military government has repeatedly carried out air strikes against two enemies: the armed pro-democracy People’s Defence Force, and ethnic minority guerilla groups that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades. 

Salai Mang Hre Lian, a programme manager of the Chin Human Rights Organisation, said in text messages to reporters: “If the international community continues to allow war crimes to be committed like this, then they let themselves to be knowingly complicit in the violations of international humanitarian laws, including the Geneva Conventions and Rome Statutes.”