Myanmar’s military says armed groups used the hospital in the bombing, killing dozens Conflict News

Witnesses at the hospital and the UN say the attack killed doctors, patients and ‘could constitute a war crime’.

The Myanmar Army has admitted to the operation Air raid on hospital 33 people were killed in the western state of Rakhine, which opposition groups and their supporters accused of being armed members, but not civilians.

Witnesses, aid workers, rebel groups and the United Nations have said the victims in the hospital were civilians.

In a statement published by the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Saturday, the military’s information office said armed groups including the ethnic Arakan Army and the People’s Defense Force used the hospital as a base.

It said the military took necessary security measures and launched an anti-terrorist operation on the General Hospital in Mrauk-U township on Wednesday.

However, on Thursday, the United Nations Dr Condemned the attack The facility, which provides emergency care, maternity and surgical services in the area, said it was part of a wider pattern of strikes causing damage to civilians and civilian objects that are wreaking havoc on communities across the country.

UN rights chief Volker Turk condemned the attacks “(in) the strongest possible terms and called for an investigation. “Such attacks could constitute a war crime. I demand an inquiry and those responsible should be held accountable. The fighting must stop now,” he wrote on X.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “horrified”. “At least 33 people have been killed … including health workers, patients and family members. The hospital’s infrastructure has been extensively damaged, with operating rooms and the main inpatient ward completely destroyed,” he wrote on X.

Myanmar to a A massive civil war.

Mrauk-U, 530km (326 mi) northwest of Yangon, the country’s largest city, was captured by the Arakan Army in February 2024.

The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-equipped military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement seeking autonomy from the central government of Myanmar. It launched an offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and captured a strategically important regional military headquarters and 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships.

Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal military crackdown in 2017 that drove nearly 740,000 Muslim-majority Rohingya to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh. There is still ethnic tension between the Buddhist Rakhine and the Rohingya.

In a statement on Thursday, the Arakan Army pledged to take responsibility for the airstrikes in cooperation with international organizations to ensure justice and take “strong and decisive action” against the army.

Prior to that, the military government has increased its airstrikes Elections scheduled for December 28. Opponents of military rule charge that the elections will not be free or fair and are largely an attempt to legitimize the military’s retained power.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military took power in 2021, sparking widespread popular opposition. Since then, many opponents of military rule have taken up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.