I. War Crimes 52 In Munglai Hkyet, the place where the attack happened … I passed the area lots of times. Mostly, I saw charcoal being stored there. Charcoal trucks would stop by that area to pick up and drop off. There is a makeshift parking lot, so it was also like a rest stop for smaller trucks and traveling buses. I always pass that area. Right before the attack, there wasn’t even big cargo being kept there. There were about 10 to 20 IDP households living around the area where the bomb dropped.97 A 74-year-old principal of a cultural center in Laiza, who has lived on Alen Bum, a hill in the back of Laiza, since 2019, shared with Fortify Rights: “We are high up so we can always hear military jets flying above us. Before the Munglai Hkyet attack on October 9, I heard the jets also. Even a week before the attack, I could see and hear the jets flying.”98 Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported that the destruction in Munglai Hkyet was consistent with aerial-delivered bombs.99 Human Rights Watch concluded that the junta forces conducted an airstrike on Munglai Hkyet and then fired rounds of artillery or mortars.100 According to Human Rights Watch: “Images of areas hit by the initial strike show debris and damage consistent with the effects of shockwaves from large high-explosive bombs delivered by aircraft.”101 Amnesty International noted: The blast wave caused catastrophic overpressure and fragmentation injuries to the victims, including fatal wounds to heads, lacerations that exposed organs, and the removal and pulverization of limbs. The size of the crater and observed damage is consistent with the largest aerial-delivered bombs known to be in the inventory of the Myanmar military. Amnesty International believes the Myanmar military almost certainly used an unguided bomb, which is an inaccurate weapon completely inappropriate for use in the vicinity of civilians.102 Although both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (as well as an earlier Fortify Rights statement) concluded that the deadly blast was caused by an air-launched bomb, Fortify Rights still cannot exclude the possibility that the blast was caused by a ground-launched missile. The junta possesses powerful ground-launched missiles, including types supplied by China as well as domestically manufactured varieties. Witness testimony describing whoosh-like sounds, which could have been a missile’s engine noise, and the damage caused at the site of the attack, is consistent with a ground-launched missile attack. Whether the attack used an air-dropped bomb or a ground-launched missile, however, it remains an indiscriminate attack on civilians and civilian objects, and therefore a likely war crime. 97 Fortify Rights communication with D.Z., Laiza, Waingmaw Township, Kachin State, Myanmar, December 14, 2023. A resident and survivor of the attack also told Kachin News Group: “I have never heard that there was a KIO/KIA landmine warehouse here. It’s fake news. [The military junta] has created an untrue news story. In my opinion, they deliberately killed the IDPs.” See also, “Survivors Recount Horrific Night After Devastating Bombing at Mung Lai Hkyet,” Kachin News Group, October 17, 2023, https://kachinnews.com/2023/10/17/survivors-recount-horrific-night-after-devastatingbombing-at-mung-lai-hkyet/. 98 Fortify Rights interview with F.D., Laiza, Waingmaw Township, Kachin State, Myanmar, November 11, 2023. 99 Human Rights Watch, “Myanmar: Airstrike on Village an Apparent War Crime,” October 17, 2023, https://www. hrw.org/news/2023/10/17/myanmar-airstrike-village-apparent-war-crime; Amnesty International, “Myanmar: 28 Civilians Killed in Military Air Strike – New Investigation and Witness Testimony,” October 13, 2023, https://www. amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/myanmar-28-civilians-killed-in-military-air-strike-new-investigation-andwitness-testimony/. 100 Human Rights Watch, “Myanmar: Airstrike on Village an Apparent War Crime.” 101 Ibid. 102 Amnesty International, “Myanmar: 28 Civilians Killed in Military Air Strike – New Investigation and Witness Testimony.”