According to a local resident, more than 100 people were at the monastery for a religious retreat. Published August 21, 2026 August 21, 2026 A military airstrike killed 14 people at a Buddhist monastery in central Myanmar, an opposition group and a local resident said. The attack occurred in the village of Swel Le Oh in Myaung township, about 75 kilometers (47 miles) west of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, Nway Oo, a spokesman for the Myaung Township Civil Defense and Security Organization (CDSOM) said on Friday. A fighter jet bombed the village’s monastery compound, killing 14 people, including three women, and wounding 20 more, Nway Oo said. two bombs in the village 15 minutes apart. The villager confirmed the CDSOM death toll of 14, and said his mother-in-law was killed in the attack. The BBC Burmese service and local media reported the death toll was between 10 and 14. The military did not immediately comment on the attack, but had previously said it only attacks legitimate targets. February 2021. After the military government violently repressed peaceful protests, many opponents of the military government took up arms. The forces fighting the government are made up of a wide range of ethnically or politically divided armed groups, some of which have existed for decades. Aung San Suu Kyi, 81, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and democracy activist who served as Myanmar’s state counselor (a role equivalent to prime minister), has been detained since the military seized power in 2021. She was moved to house arrest in April. The war has killed more than 100,000 people and displaced 5.2 million, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. Resistance forces and ethnic armies control about 42 percent of the country, compared to 21 percent for the military government. Myaung township is in the Sagaing region, which is a stronghold of armed resistance against the military government. The United Nations-established Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said in August that it had observed a notable escalation of airstrikes ahead of elections in December and January, and that they continued unabated afterward. Myanmar’s foreign ministry rejected the IIMM report, saying it only targets “terrorists” and that security forces exercise maximum restraint to avoid harm to civilians.
