Bombs Rain Down in Myanmar as Junta Evades Sanctions to Buy Jet Fuel

The family ducked for cover when junta jets roared over their home in central Myanmar. U Har San and his wife crawled under a table, and their daughter, eight months pregnant, hid under a bed. Bombs rained down, he said, even though no rebel fighters were in their village.

One bomb killed the mother-to-be, Ma Zar Zar Win. “She was our only daughter, and now our family line has been cut off,” Mr. Har San said.

The attack last month on the village of Lat Pan Hla is a feature of Myanmar’s brutal war strategy. Unable to defeat the rebels on the ground, it has increased its indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets to terrorize the population.

The airstrikes have also taken a heavy toll on resistance fighters. But the resistance fighters continue to make gains on the ground. In recent weeks, rebel armies seized a prison in Shan State, freeing hundreds of political prisoners, and on the opposite side of the country, another rebel army captured a civilian airport in Rakhine State.

The escalating attacks on civilians have made it clear that Myanmar is evading sanctions aimed at blocking the flow of jet fuel that the regime needs to keep its bombers, fighter jets and helicopter gunships in the air. In separate attacks, the junta recently bombed a wedding and a monastery, killing some 60 people.

Myanmar Peace Monitor, a nonprofit group that tracks aerial attacks, said at least 1,188 civilians had been killed by aerial bombing since the military seized power in February 2021. By the group’s count, the regime has already conducted more aerial attacks in the first half of this year than all of last year — a demonstrating the regime’s ability to circumvent sanctions.