Myanmar’s junta is accused of committing another war crime after a hospital explosion in Chin state on Thursday night.
Regime fighters bombed Wun Ma Tuu hospital in the state’s Mindat township at about 8 pm on Thursday, killing four civilians and wounding 15 others, a Chinese Defense Forces (CDF-Mindat) spokesman told The Irrawaddy.
“The people who were killed and injured were patients and their family members looking after them,” resistance official Jin said.
CDF-Mindat reported that the hospital has a capacity of 300 beds and is located in the east of the village. The resistance group said there was no fighting in the area before the hospital was destroyed in an overnight airstrike.
Intentionally attacking medical facilities is a war crime under international law.
Photos from the scene show the entire hospital on fire. Officials say the hospital was destroyed along with all the medical equipment and medicine it contained.
Before bombing the hospital, junta planes struck another area of the village of Mindat at about 16:00. Junta planes also bombed civilian areas in the town of Mindat at 11pm on Thursday, but the extent of the damage and the number of casualties was not yet known, CDF-Mindat said.
Chin State is among the poorest areas in Myanmar. Mountainous terrain and limited transportation routes make it difficult for local residents to access health services and for health care providers to reach residents. Since the coup, access to medicine and healthcare has further declined, leading to a public health crisis that includes rising infant and maternal mortality rates.
On April 3, junta fighters dropped cluster bombs on civilian targets in the village of Auk Chain. The people’s administration of the village of Mindat reported that five civilians, including two children, were injured as a result of the explosions. Twelve houses were destroyed and others were damaged by bomb blasts, the administration said. It said a school was also damaged by cluster bombs.
The use of cluster bombs is prohibited by most countries in the world. Bombs are made up of “blobs” (submunitions) that fly apart when the bomb hits a target. The droplets can remain explosive for decades.
On April 1, three junta fighters used bombs and machine gun fire in an attack on a village in the second administrative division of Mindat, damaging a house and a religious building.
According to the village administration, on March 15, a mother and her six-year-old daughter were killed during an airstrike by the junta on a village in the third administrative unit of Mindat. Four other people were wounded in the attack, which also destroyed two schools and a church.
