- Fortify Rights said Myanmar’s air force “dropped bombs on both sides of the Myanmar-India border” in raids this week.
India should prevent Myanmar warplanes from entering Indian airspace during military regime operations to bomb targets in areas near India’s border, an international human rights group has said.
Fortify Rights claimed Myanmar’s air force had “dropped bombs on both sides of the Myanmar-India border” in deadly attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday against an ethnic Chin rebel group.
Five soldiers from the Chin National Front (CNF) were killed, including two women, in airstrikes that reportedly began Tuesday when bombs were dropped on the ethnic armed group’s Camp Victoria in Myanmar’s Chin state, which borders the Indian state of Mizoram, the rights group said.
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Two bombs dropped by Myanmar’s air force also landed on the Indian side of the border, near Farkawn village in Mizoram’s Champhai district, the rights group added, though no injuries were reported on the Indian side.
“New Delhi should not tolerate the junta’s incursions into its airspace, and the Indian authorities should do everything in their power to ensure the safety of civilians and border areas,” Fortify Rights Executive Director Matthew Smith said in a statement Thursday.
“India must not allow the junta to continue to destabilize the region by using Indian airspace in its attacks and must support efforts to hold the junta accountable for its crimes,” he said.
Myanmar warplanes have also violated the airspace of Thailand and Bangladesh in recent months, according to the human rights organization.
Salai Htet Ni, the spokesman for the CNF, which claims to represent the mainly Christian Chin minority located in western Myanmar, said on Wednesday that seven bombs were dropped.
“Some of our houses were destroyed by their airstrike… A bomb landed on the Indian side,” he told AFP news agency.
Chin state-based media published footage of what was claimed to be a Myanmar warplane and the damage inflicted at Camp Victoria and the site where a bomb landed inside India.
According to the French news agency, Indian police reported that the bombs had fallen on a riverbed demarcating the international border between India and Myanmar.
“Our initial investigation has revealed that there is no damage to any [Indian] life or property,” Lalrinpuia Varte, Champhai district police superintendent, told AFP.
According to AFP, the number of CNF fighters has declined in recent years and the group signed a ceasefire with Myanmar’s military in 2015. However, the CNF has since signed an agreement with forces fighting the military regime that seized power in Myanmar in February 2021.
Source: AL JAZEERA
