Pazigyi massacre explained

Pazigyi massacre
Location:Pazigyi, Sagaing Region
Date:11 April 2023
Partof:the Myanmar civil war
Fatalities:≥165[1]
Injuries:30

On 11 April 2023, the Myanmar Air Force massacred at least 165 people[2] in the village of Pazigyi, Kantbalu Township, which is located west of Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city. The air force used fighter jets and helicopters to attack a large crowd of people gathering for the opening of a local office of an opposition movement. The Pazigyi attack was the junta's deadliest attack since seizing power in the 2021 coup d'état.[3]

Background

On 1 February 2021, the Myanmar Armed Forces staged a coup d'état and deposed the democratically elected government led by the National League for Democracy. Shortly after, the military established a junta, the State Administration Council (SAC), and declared a national state of emergency. In response, civilians throughout the country staged large-scale protests resisting the military coup.[4]

By May 2021, the civilian-led resistance had escalated into a civil war against the SAC, who was unwilling to compromise. Pazigyi is situated in the traditional Bamar Buddhist heartland, which quickly emerged as a stronghold of resistance against military rule. Pazigyi is a small farming village of approximately 233 households,[5] located in the Sagaing Region, which borders the country's second-largest city, Mandalay.[6]

In early April 2023, Myanmar Army troops launched a military offensive in Sagaing Region, where Pazigyi is located, to intimidate and suppress local resistance. The Myanmar Army burned and raided villages and murdered villagers, driving thousands of people from their homes.[7] By 23 February, 14 of the 50 townships placed under martial law were located in Sagaing Region.

Incident

On 11 April 2023, over 800 villagers gathered in Pazigyi to celebrate the opening of an administration office of the People's Defence Force (an armed group opposed to the military government), where food and tea were offered. The event coincided with the third day of Burmese New Year celebrations.[8] During the celebration, a fighter jet bombed the area, detonating nearby munitions.[9] Shortly thereafter, a helicopter fired indiscriminately on targets below. The air raid resulted in the death of at least 165 people[2] and injured another 30. Many of the victims were women and children.[10] [11]

Later, at 17:23 MMT, an Mi-35 helicopter that had taken off from an air force base located in Tada-U launched a second attack on Pazigyi village.[12] [13]

Later in the evening, the junta's spokesperson, Major General Zaw Min Tun, confirmed that the strike had happened, but he did not reveal how many people had been killed.[14]

The victims included 34 children, and many of the bodies were dismembered and burnt beyond identification.[15] The air-strike killed two to four members of every family in the village, according to a People's Defence Force battalion spokesperson.

Reactions

International response

Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres issued a statement on 11 April in which he strongly condemned the attack and demanded that those responsible be held accountable.[16] [17] United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews stated, "The Myanmar military's attacks against innocent people, including today's airstrike in Sagaing, is enabled by world indifference and those supplying them with weapons."[2]

ASEAN issued a statement on April 13 condemning the attack, stating that "All forms of violence must end immediately, particularly the use of force against civilians," and reiterated the five-point consensus agreed upon in April 2021.[18] [19]

The United States Department of State expressed deep concern over the airstrikes and called on the Myanmar government to put an end to the horrific violence.[20] Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno strongly condemned the violence, and called for both the cessation of violence and restoration of democracy.[21] Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the Burmese military's use of force, adding that it would worsen the domestic situation, and urged the regime to restore democracy. Both China and Russia refused to accept the draft resolution condemning the air strike.[22]

France condemned the airstrike on the village and said that it would continue to stand firmly with the Myanmar people, whose courage and staunch commitment to democracy it applauded.[23]

In a statement, the embassy of Canada to Myanmar stated: "Canada condemns the Myanmar regime's repeated, deliberate, widespread, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force against civilians. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law.[24]

Amnesty International called for an international suspension of aviation fuel imports to Myanmar.[25]

Domestic response

The National Unity Government (NUG) has ordered that the flag of the People's Defense Force (PDF) be flown at half-mast to commemorate the victims of the military's air attacks.[26]

The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw issued a statement that read "unless the international community takes decisive action against the terrorist army, countless Burmese citizens will continue to perish."[27]

The NUG's Ministry of Defence has claimed that the air strike on Pazigyi village constitutes a war crime and has pledged to expel the military regime from Myanmar as swiftly as possible.[28]

The NUG's foreign minister Zin Mar Aung announced that she would strive to secure justice for the village.[29]

The Karenni State Consultative Council (KSCC) declared in a statement that the terrorist military council is engaging in mass air slaughters directed towards civilians, and emphasized the need for a concerted effort to fight against the military dictatorship with full force, to swiftly bring an end to their rule.[30]

See also

Notes and References

  1. News: ပဇီကြီး လေကြောင်းတိုက်ခိုက်ခံရမှု-ဧပြီ ၁၄ ရက်နေ့ ရရှိထားတဲ့ သေဆုံးစာရင်းက ၁၇၁ ဦးရှိလာ . Pazigyi Air Attack – The death toll received on April 14 has reached 171. https://web.archive.org/web/20230415100624/https://www.bbc.com/burmese/articles/cm5dg5r3r0jo. April 15, 2023. BBC Burmese . 14 April 2023 . my.
  2. News: Regan . Helen . Sidhu . Sandi . Salai TZ . Coren . Anna . 12 April 2023 . Screaming people and bodies everywhere: The horrific aftermath of Myanmar junta airstrike that killed 165 . en . CNN . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412171418/https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/12/asia/myanmar-junta-deadly-airstrike-aftermath-intl-hnk/index.html . April 12, 2023.
  3. News: Peck . Grant . 11 April 2023 . Airstrikes on Myanmar village feared to have killed 100 . en . AP NEWS . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230411162123/http://apnews.com/article/airstrikes-military-myanmar-village-918fd636bb81153928ab7481e06423e5 . April 11, 2023.
  4. News: 11 April 2023 . Dozens killed and wounded in Myanmar military air attacks . en . Al Jazeera . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412122905/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/11/dozens-killed-and-wounded-in-myanmar-military-air-attacks . April 12, 2023.
  5. News: 10 June 2019 . ကန့်ဘလူမြို့နယ် ပဇီကြီးကျေးရွာ၌ သန့်ရှင်းသော သောက်သုံးရေရရှိရေး စက်ရေတွင်းတူးဖော် . my . Drilling a well for clean drinking water in Pazi Gyi Village, Kantablu Township . Myanmar DigitalNews . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412063839/https://www.myanmardigitalnewspaper.com/my/knbhluumiuny-pjiikiikeraan-snrngseaa-seaaksunrerrire-ckrettngttuupheaa . April 12, 2023.
  6. News: 11 April 2023 . Myanmar: Dozens killed in air strike on remote village . en . DW . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412173511/https://www.dw.com/en/myanmar-dozens-killed-in-air-strike-on-remote-village/a-65281599 . April 12, 2023.
  7. News: 11 April 2023 . At Least 50 Civilians Including Children Massacred in Myanmar Regime Air Strike in Sagaing . The Irrawaddy . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412100236/https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/at-least-50-civilians-including-children-massacred-in-myanmar-regime-air-strike-in-sagaing.html . April 12, 2023.
  8. News: Ochab . Ewelina . 12 April 2023 . Myanmar Military Kills More Than 100 People In A Single Attack . Forbes . live . https://archive.today/20230412224646/https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2023/04/12/myanmar-military-kills-more-than-100-people-in-a-single-attack/?sh=f687ce3393f1 . April 12, 2023.
  9. News: Paddock . Richard C. . 11 April 2023 . Airstrike in Rebel-Held Region of Myanmar Kills at Least 100 . The New York Times . live . limited . 12 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412112258/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/world/asia/myanmar-airstrike.html . April 12, 2023 . 0362-4331.
  10. News: 11 April 2023 . Deadly airstrike on Pazigyi village in Kanbalu Township, Sagaing Region, claims over 50 lives . en . Burma News International . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412041635/https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/deadly-airstrike-pazigyi-village-kanbalu-township-sagaing-region-claims-over-50-lives . April 12, 2023.
  11. News: 12 April 2023 . Myanmar's junta kills over 100 including women, children in a deadly airstrike on village: Report . India TV News . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412011424/https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/world/myanmar-junta-killed-over-more-than-100-including-women-children-live-updates-airstrike-village-kant-balu-sagaing-min-aung-hlaing-aung-san-suu-kyi-2023-04-12-862665 . April 12, 2023.
  12. News: 11 April 2023 . ကန့်ဘလူ၊ပဇီကြီးရွာကို စစ်ကောင်စီတပ် ဂျက်ဖိုက်တာဖြင့် ဒုတိယအကြိမ်ဗုံးကြဲ၊ပထမအကြိမ်ဗုံးကြဲပစ်ခတ်မှု ပြည်သူ၁၂၀နီးပါးသေဆုံး . my-MM . Kantbulu, Pazigyi village, the military council army Jefo . MPA . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412005832/https://mpapress.com/သတင်း/19605/ . April 12, 2023.
  13. News: Shwewa . Maung . 11 April 2023 . ကန့်ဘလူ၊ ပဇီကြီးရွာတွင် ရုပ်အလောင်း ၈၀ ကျော် သင်္ဂြိုဟ်နေစဉ် လေတပ် ဗုံးထပ်ကြဲ . my . Kantbalu The Air Force bombarded more than 80 corpses in Pazigyi village . Myanmar Now . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230411154235/https://myanmar-now.org/mm/news/31052/ . April 11, 2023.
  14. News: 12 April 2023 . Myanmar confirms deadly air strike that is feared to have killed 100 . en . TRT . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412041501/https://www.trtworld.com/asia/myanmar-confirms-deadly-air-strike-that-is-feared-to-have-killed-100-66995 . April 12, 2023.
  15. Web site: Wah . Maung Shwe . 2023-04-12 . 'Children's bodies crushed into pieces' in Myanmar military airstrike on Kanbalu Township . live . https://archive.today/20230412225447/https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/childrens-bodies-crushed-into-pieces-in-myanmar-military-airstrike-on-kanbalu-township/ . April 12, 2023 . 2023-04-12 . Myanmar Now . en-US.
  16. News: UN Secretary General and rights chief condemn Pazigyi Village massacre . Mizzima . 11 April 2023 . 12 April 2023 . 12 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412053800/https://www.mizzima.com/article/un-secretary-general-and-rights-chief-condemn-pazigyi-village-massacre . live .
  17. Web site: Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General – on Myanmar . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412080318/https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2023-04-11/statement-attributable-the-spokesperson-for-the-secretary-general-–-myanmar . April 12, 2023 . 2023-04-12 . United Nations Secretary-General.
  18. Web site: ASEAN Chair's Statement on the Recent Air Strikes in Pa Zi Gyi Village, Kanbalu Township, Sagaing Region of Myanmar . 2023-04-13 . . 2023-04-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230413082334/https://asean.org/asean-chairs-statement-on-the-recent-air-strikes-in-pa-zi-gyi-village-kanbalu-township-sagaing-region-of-myanmar/ . live .
  19. Web site: 2023-04-13 . ASEAN 'strongly condemns' deadly air strike in Myanmar . 2023-04-13 . Rappler . en-US.
  20. Web site: Patel . Vedant . 2023-04-11 . Burma Regime Airstrikes . https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20230412230402/https://www.state.gov/burma-regime-airstrikes/ . 2023-04-12 . U.S. Department of State . 2023-04-13 . live .
  21. Web site: Chau . Thompson . 2023-04-12 . Deadly Myanmar airstrike heaps pressure on ASEAN ahead of summit . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412173019/https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Myanmar-Crisis/Deadly-Myanmar-airstrike-heaps-pressure-on-ASEAN-ahead-of-summit . April 12, 2023 . 2023-04-12 . Nikkei Asia . en-GB.
  22. News: 13 April 2023 . ဧပြီ ၁၃ ရက်ထိပ်တန်းသတင်းများ-ပဇီကြီးကျေးရွာလေကြောင်းတိုက်ခိုက်ခံရမှု ရှုတ်ချဖို့ အဆိုမူကြမ်းကို ရုရှားနဲ့တရုတ် လက်မခံ . my . April 13 Top News: Russia and China reject the draft resolution to condemn the air attack on Pazi Gyi village. . BBC News Myanmar . live . 13 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230413082451/https://www.bbc.com/burmese/articles/ce56kjx3532o?mibextid=5zvaxg . 13 April 2023.
  23. Web site: 2023-04-11 . Myanmar – France condemns the air strike on the village of Pa Zi Gyi in the strongest terms (11 April 2023) . 2023-04-21 . France Diplomacy - Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
  24. Web site: 2022-12-05 . Statement from the Embassy of Canada to Myanmar . 2023-04-21 . GAC.
  25. Web site: 2023-04-11 . Myanmar: Urgent need to suspend aviation fuel as air strikes wreak havoc . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412130339/https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/04/myanmar-air-strikes-sagaing/ . April 12, 2023 . 2023-04-12 . Amnesty International . en.
  26. News: 12 April 2023 . ကန့်ဘလူတွင် ပြည်သူ ၁၀၀ ကျော်သေဆုံးခဲ့ရသော လေ ကြောင်း တိုက်ခိုက် ခံရမှု ဝမ်းနည်းခြင်းအထိမ်းအမှတ် PDF အလံကို ၅ ရက်တိတိ တိုင်ဝက် လွှင့် ထူရန် NUG ညွှန်ကြား . my . NUG instructs NUG to fly the PDF flag at half-mast on the 5th day to commemorate the air attack that killed more than 100 people in Kantablu. . Khit Thit Media . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412072408/https://yktnews.com/2023/04/ကန့်ဘလူတွင်-ပြည်သူ-၁၀၀-က-2/ . April 12, 2023.
  27. News: 11 April 2023 . ပဇီကြီးရွာကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်က လေကြောင်းနဲ့ တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့မှုအပေါ် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီက ကြေညာချက်ထုတ်ပြန် . my . Union Hluttaw Representative Committee released a statement on the terrorist army's air attack on Pazigyi village . PVTV . live . https://archive.today/20230412221658/https://pvtvmyanmar.net/%E1%80%95%E1%80%87%E1%80%AE%E1%80%80%E1%80%BC%E1%80%AE%E1%80%B8%E1%80%9B%E1%80%BD%E1%80%AC%E1%80%80%E1%80%AD%E1%80%AF-%E1%80%A1%E1%80%80%E1%80%BC%E1%80%99%E1%80%BA%E1%80%B8%E1%80%96%E1%80%80%E1%80%BA/ . April 12, 2023.
  28. News: 11 April 2023 . ပြည်သူ ၁၀၀ ကျော်သေဆုံးသော ကန့်ဘလူ၊ ပဇီကြီးကျေးရွာ လေကြောင်း တိုက်ခိုက်ခံရမှု စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှု ကျူးလွန်ခြင်းဖြစ်ပြီး စစ်အာဏာရှင် စနစ် မြန် မာ့ မြေပေါ်မှ အပြီးတိုင် ဖယ်ရှားမည်ဟု NUG ပြော . my . More than 100 people died in Kantbalu. NUG said that the air attack on Pazi Gyi village was a war crime and that the military regime will be removed from the ground as soon as possible. . Khit Thit Media . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230411132817/https://yktnews.com/2023/04/ပြည်သူ-၁၀၀-ကျော်သေဆုံးသေ/ . April 11, 2023.
  29. News: 11 April 2023 . ပဇီကြီးရွာတိုက်ခိုက်မှု တရားမျှတမှုရအောင် ကြိုးစားမယ်လို့ NUG နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးပြော . my . The NUG Foreign Minister said that he will try to get justice for the Pazi Gyi village attack . Radio Free Asia . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230412094448/https://www.rfa.org/burmese/program_2/pazigyi-airstrike-fair-04112023172407.html . April 12, 2023.
  30. News: 11 April 2023 . အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ပြည်သူများကို ပစ်မှတ်ထား၍ အစုလိုက်အပြုံလိုက် လေကြောင်းဖြင့် သတ်ဖြတ်မှု ကျူးလွန်နေပြီး စစ်အာဏာရှင် အမြန်ဆုံးချုပ်ငြိမ်းရေး အလုံးစုံညီညွတ်ရေး တည်ဆောက်ကာ အစွမ်းကုန်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ရန် လိုအပ်ကြောင်း KSCC က ထုတ်ပြန် . my . KSCC issued a statement that the terrorist military council is committing mass air killings targeting the people, and it is necessary to build unity and fight with all our might to end the military dictatorship as soon as possible. . Khit Thit Media . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230411184121/https://yktnews.com/2023/04/အကြမ်းဖက်-စစ်ကောင်စီသည်/ . April 11, 2023.

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