Myanmar junta forces have destroyed at least 35 more hospitals and clinics – an average of one every two days – in Shan, Rakhine, Mon, and Chin states and Magwe Region in two months since the end of February, according to the civilian National Unity Government (NUG).
Wun Ma Thuu Hospital in Mindat Township, Chin State, was bombed on the night of April 25, marking the most recent targeting of health facilities by the regime.
The airstrike killed four patients and a medical attendant and left many others injured. It also destroyed the main healthcare provider for the local community and neighboring townships. “The terrorist military has consistently and deliberately carried out airstrikes on civilian-inhabited areas and inhumane attacks on the health sector,” said the NUG in its April 28 statement.
On Feb. 28, the NUG reported that junta forces had destroyed a total of 308 hospitals and clinics since the military coup in February 2021. That figure increased to 343 health facilities destroyed with 104 health workers killed and 131 injured, according to its latest report.
Junta troops have launched a total of 1,293 attacks on the health sector since the coup, the NUG reported.
The junta has also detained more than 800 medical staff for joining the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) by refusing to work under military rule, according to data from the NUG’s health ministry. “Healthcare facilities are not legitimate military targets. They are situated in civilian areas. Attacking them is an inhumane act,” said an ethnic Kachin male resident of Shwegu Township, Kachin State.
Shwegu Township’s Sitha village hospital was destroyed in a bombing raid by a junta jet fighter on April 5 last year.
In deliberately targeting the health system, the junta is violating the Geneva Conventions, UN Security Council resolutions, and international humanitarian and human rights laws, the NUG said.
“We strongly urge all parties to stop supporting the inhumane terrorist military council, which is committing war crimes and killing innocent people through brutal means,” it said.
