Myanmar military defends Bhamo with bombing blitz, residents say

Updated Dec. 18, 2024, 2:55p.m. ET

Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

Myanmar’s ruling military battled to defend a major northern town on Wednesday as its forces also came under pressure in the west and the east and its most important ally China worked to stop the onslaught by insurgents determined to end the generals' rule.

Forces of the junta that seized power in a February 2021 coup have been pushed back in different places across the country by ethnic minority insurgents and allied pro-democracy paramilitaries over the past year.

Ethnic Kachin insurgents have been attacking the northern city of Bhamo on the Irrawaddy River for two weeks and have advanced towards the military’s headquarters there.

Junta forces have responded with heavy airstrikes, residents said.

“Last night at around 8 p.m., the planes were dropping bombs. There must have been about 100 strikes,” said one Bhamo resident, who declined to be identified in fear of reprisals.

“On the side of the headquarters, fighting is continuing and we hear gunfire. We can also see houses near there burning.”

Another resident of Bhamo, who also declined to be named, told RFA that houses were set on fire during the fighting.

“Houses were burnt down today, and three times yesterday,” he said. “We can’t get close to those houses. Fire broke out while the two forces fought, as artillery shells landed there.”

An aid organization in the area said 30 civilians had been killed and nearly 150 wounded in Bhamo since Dec. 4. Among the dead were 10 children and five nuns, said a spokesperson from the group who declined to be identified.

“It’s an approximation from people on the ground and those who fled,” said the spokesperson. “The dead were killed by airstrikes and heavy weapons, and some by shooting when they fled.”

RFA tried to telephone Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, to ask about the situation in Bhamo but he did not answer.

China, the junta’s main foreign ally, has been trying to end the violence in its neighbor, where it has extensive economic interests including rare earth mines in Kachin state energy pipelines from the Indian Ocean, and has been pressing insurgents to strike ceasefires with the junta.

The chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, General N’Ban La, met senior Chinese official Wu Ken in the Chinese city of Kunming on Dec. 12 for talks on a truce with the Myanmar military and trade along Kachin state’s border with China, said Kachin military information officer Naw Bu.

“They discussed a ceasefire and opening gates along the border, then after fighting stops, they talked about having peace talks with the junta,” he said. “Neither side has made any formal decision or agreement.”

He declined to say if China was putting pressure on the KIA but China has in recent days pressed two insurgent groups in Shan state, to the southeast of Kachin state, to agree to ceasefires after cutting off border trade.

Kachin political commentator Sha Bat said that although China is pressuring the KIA to end the offensives, the rebel group will not give up its political goals and military objectives.

“China is making demands to protect its interests,” he said. “However, the KIO also has its own objectives and won’t give up on them.”

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Manerplaw re-captured

In Myanmar’s western-most Rakhine state, ethnic minority Arakan Army, or AA, insurgents have surrounded the army Western Command base in the town of Ann, one of the military’s last major headquarters in the state.

The AA released drone video footage of the base on Wednesday, showing burning buildings in ruins, with smoke rising. Radio Free Asia could not verify the date the video was taken but it was clearly of the Western Command headquarters.

The AA also released video of scores of captured men, hands tied, marching in a line with white flags of surrender.

In the east, Myanmar’s oldest insurgent group, the Karen National Union, or KNU, re-captured their headquarters at Manerplaw, which they lost in 1995 to the army following a split in their ranks.

“We are taking back the headquarters that we lost for 30 years,” said the group’s spokesman, Saw Taw Nee.

Manerplaw, on a river along the border with Thailand, is of great symbolic importance.

The Karen headquarters was the hub of opposition efforts by an alliance of ethnic minority groups and student fighters from the majority Burman community after the military crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

Those same groups are again striving for unity as they seek to end military rule and usher in what they say will be a democratic, federal Myanmar.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.

This story has been updated to include comments by a resident of Bhamo and a Kachin political commentator.