Airstrike on Myanmar displacement camp kills 12, rescue workers say
The strike hit the Byar La settlement in Rakhine State on Friday night. A rescue official reported 12 dead and 18 injured; a resident corroborated the death toll.
The war reached people who had already fled it. An airstrike hit the Byar La camp in Ponnagyun Township, western Myanmar, on the night of Friday, November 13. Twelve people were killed and 18 injured, according to a rescue official interviewed by AFP. A resident corroborated the death toll. A five-year-old was among those killed.
The toll is an account from witnesses and rescue workers, not an official list of victims. AFP visited the site on Saturday and described collapsed bamboo shelters, clothing and household belongings among the debris. The agency said it could not reach Myanmar's military for comment.
Chit Su Wai, a shopkeeper who lived at the camp, told AFP that her daughter, mother and aunt had died. Khine Hein Htet, chairman of the local rescue organization Phyusin Yin Khwin, confirmed the toll of 12 dead and 18 wounded. Some families had lived at the camp for four years, he said.
A refuge in the Rakhine conflict zone
Byar La is in Rakhine State, near its capital, Sittwe. Local outlet Development Media Group initially reported at least eight deaths, then raised the toll to 12, with 18 injured, on Saturday. It said the camp housed people displaced from Sittwe and Ponnagyun. It also reported that the same site had been bombed on October 4, killing six people. Those details are based on local accounts and do not amount to an independent investigation into responsibility for each strike.
The area has seen fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group that controls much of Rakhine. The conflict intensified after the 2021 military coup, leaving camps intended as places of refuge exposed to violence.
The United Nations had already warned of the wider danger. In July, its humanitarian office said fighting in Ponnagyun, Sittwe and other parts of Rakhine was driving displacement and protection concerns. In October, Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, told the UN General Assembly that his team was investigating attacks on civilians in homes, hospitals, schools and displacement camps. That broader investigation is not a legal finding about the Byar La strike.
For now, the accounts consulted agree on the location and the toll of 12 dead and 18 injured. The military has yet to give its account of this attack. For survivors, the immediate question is where to find safety when even displacement camps are struck.
