I. War Crimes 54 Before, I had only heard the siren tests [from China]. But today [October 31], the sirens have been ringing all day. In my previous experience with the sirens, we all knew they were doing tests. It didn’t leave me with the dread of what’s about to come, like it does today.109 All three Laiza residents confirmed that a few hours after attacking the cultural center on October 31, the junta also launched several airstrikes on Laiza town, which houses administrative departments of KIO and KIA, starting at 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.110 The 44-year-old Laiza resident told Fortify Rights at approximately 8:57 p.m., “Now, it seems stable, but earlier, it felt like the world was crashing down on us,” referencing the airstrike in Laiza around 6 p.m.111 Just two minutes later, Fortify Rights received another voice message from him, with the sound of an air raid siren audible in the background: “The plane is coming again. That’s the air raid siren. I will contact you back later.”112 Fortify Rights did not hear back from the Laiza resident until 9:20 p.m., when he sent a brief voice message saying: “I am safe, but there’s nowhere to run. We are just hiding inside the house with all lights off.”113 The 29-year-old resident quoted above said: In the evening, around 6 p.m. [on October 31, 2023], another group of jets showed up. This time, there were five jets, but some of the bombs that were dropped didn’t explode. There were sirens from China beforehand. I could feel the first attack, but it was dark, and I didn’t see the smoke or the big explosion. But one of the bombs that was dropped caused a big explosion that the whole town could see. It was like those big fireworks explosions. … Around 8-9 p.m., I heard another round of warning sirens from China, but no airstrike. However, I heard a lot of artillery shelling. It was at least ten rounds, and the outskirts of Laiza seemed to be the target. I don’t know what the targets were exactly, though. It was very loud.114 On the evening of October 31, the Myanmar junta issued a statement via Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV), which it controls, stating that it had carried out “[a]ppropriate retaliatory strikes … against the KIA’s munitions and mine production sites and storage sites,” based on the “accurate reports of key informants.”115 The statement claims that the junta’s October 31 attack on Laiza was a direct response to the KIA’s attacks that overtook a junta outpost and killed junta soldiers and officers. Specifically, the junta stated: “KIA and joint forces attacked the Gundauyang Security Outpost, which is providing platoon-level security to the Tatmadaw [the junta’s name for its military], and the Myitkyina-Bhamo main communication route was blocked and controlled [by the KIA]. Some [junta] army soldiers were killed and injured in the process.”116 The statement also said, “the neighboring country [China] was notified in advance of the inevitable incident,” that “counter attacks were 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. Fortify Rights interview with D.A., Laiza, Waingmaw Township, Kachin State, November 1, 2023; Fortify Rights communication with C.B., Laiza, Waingmaw Township, Kachin State, November 1, 2023. 111 Fortify Rights communication with Z.H., Laiza, Waingmaw Township, Kachin State, Myanmar, October 31, 2023. 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. 114 Fortify Rights interview with D.A., Laiza, Waingmaw Township, Kachin State, Myanmar, November 1, 2023. 115 မြြစ််ကြီး�း�နား�း-ဗန်းး�မော်�်� ကားး�လမ်းး�မကြီး�း�အားး� လုံံခြုံ� � �ံ ရေး�းဆော�ာင််ရွွက်ပေး ် �းနေေသည့််� ကန််တော်�်�ယန်လုံ ် ခြုံ� ံ� �ံ ရေး�းစခန်းး�အားး� KIA နှှင့် �် ပူးး�ပေါ�ါင်းး�အင််အားး�စုုအဖွဲ့့�� မှှ အင််အားး�အလုံးး��အရင်းး�ဖြ�င့််� ဝင််ရော�ာက််တိုက် ု� ခိုု ် က် � ် [KIA and Allied Forces Launch Massive Attack on Gundauyang Security Outpost Providing Security on Myitkyina- Bhamo Road],” MRTV, October 31, 2023, https://mrtv.gov.mm/en/news-217662. 116 Junta Ministry of Information, “မြ�စ််ကြီး�း�နား�း-ဗန်းး�မော်�်� ကားး�လမ်းး�မကြီး�း�အားး� လုံံခြုံ� � �ံ ရေး�းဆော�ာင််ရွွက်ပေး ် �းနေေသည့််� ကန််တော်�်�ယန် ် လုံံခြုံ� � �ံ ရေး�းစခန်းး� အားး� KIA နှှင့် �် ပူးး�ပေါ�ါင်းး�အင််အားး�စုုအဖွဲ့့�� မှှ အင််အားး�အလုံးး��အရင်းး�ဖြ�င့််� ဝင််ရော�ာက််တိုက် ု� ခိုု ် က် � ခဲ့့�ပြီး ် �း� ဆက််သွွယ််ရေး�းလမ်းး�ကြော��ာင်းး�အားး� တားး�ဆီးး�ထိိန်းး�ချုု�ပ်် ရန်် ဆော�ာင််ရွွက်လာ ် ာသဖြ�င့််� တပ််မတော်�်�မှှ လိုု�အပ််သည့််�တုုန့်ပြ� �န်် ု � ဆော�ာင််ရွွက်် [KIA and Allied Forces Forcibly Attacked Gundauyang ် မှုများ�း Security Outpost, Which is Providing Security on Myitkyina-Bhamo Road, and Plans to Control the Communication Route, Prompting Tatmadaw to Conduct Appropriate Retaliation],” November 1, 2023, https://www.moi.gov.mm/ news/46645.