9
Kachin State is home to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), one of the oldest, largest,
and most established ethnic armed groups in Myanmar. Decades of conflict in Kachin
State have been marked by the junta’s abuses, including recent airstrikes targeting
Laiza, a key KIA-held town near the Chinese border. Meanwhile, in Karenni State,
armed opposition strengthened more recently in response to the military’s attacks on
civilians. In 2021, the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) was founded, and
now fights alongside other resistance groups against the Myanmar junta.
Since 2022, the Myanmar military junta has steadily lost territory and outposts to
rapidly advancing armed resistance groups throughout the country. While the junta
maintains control of Myanmar’s largest cities—Yangon, Naypyidaw, and Mandalay—in
many parts of the country, the military is now largely confined to besieged army bases.
As a result of this, it has increasingly resorted to airstrikes as its primary offensive
military tactic, often striking civilian areas and objects or terrorizing the population
with indiscriminate attacks.
A funeral service
held for victims killed
in the September 5,
2024 airstrike on the
“Bangkok” internally
displaced persons
camp in Pekon
Township on the
border of Karenni and
southern Shan.
©Min Htet San, 2024
This report documents the death and destruction caused by ten airstrikes and aerial
bombardments in Karenni and Kachin states, including deliberate attacks on schools,
hospitals, churches, and homes, as well as the forced displacement of civilians. While
these specific attacks represent a fraction of the junta’s broader campaign of mass
atrocity crimes, each attack constitutes a separate prosecutable war crime.
For example, the junta bombed an internally displaced persons (IDP) site known as
“Bangkok” IDP camp in Pekon Township—on the border of Karenni and Shan states—on
May 22, September 5, and November 18, 2024. Fortify Rights documented the September
and November attacks. The September 5 airstrike, at approximately 9:15 p.m., killed nine
internally displaced persons, including six children, and injured 19 others. It destroyed
shelters, a school, and other critical civilian infrastructure. Eyewitnesses confirmed