Myanmar Military Airstrike Kills 14 at Buddhist Monastery During Lent Retreat

A Myanmar military jet dropped a bomb on a monastery compound in Sagaing region Friday morning, killed people trying to flee, then came back 15 minutes later and dropped a second one. Fourteen people died. Twenty more were wounded.

The attack hit Swel Le Oh village in Myaung township, about 75 kilometers west of Mandalay, according to Nway Oo, a spokesperson for the Civil Defence and Security Organisation of Myaung Township, cited by the Associated Press. Eleven men and three women were killed, ages 50 to 70, according to Nway Oo Myaung, a pro-democracy rebel who helped recover bodies, speaking to AFP and Channel NewsAsia. More than 100 people had been staying at the site for a three-month meditation retreat marking Buddhist Lent, a period that coincides with Myanmar's rainy season.

"It wasn't a mistaken target, they intentionally attacked a monastery," Nway Oo Myaung said, according to Channel NewsAsia and The Straits Times.

A second opposition fighter, speaking anonymously to the same outlets, said five of the dead were from his village and the other nine came from neighboring villages. He was searching for survivors when the aircraft returned. "While we were trying to rescue people, the aircraft came to bomb a second time," he said.

The Myanmar military has not commented on the strike, according to the BBC, AP, and every other outlet covering this. Its government has previously said it only strikes legitimate targets.

A pattern UN investigators already flagged

The monastery strike landed days after the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, a UN Human Rights Council-appointed body, published its annual report accusing the military of "indiscriminate and intentional aerial attacks against civilians," covering July 2025 through June 2026, according to the Hindustan Times.

Nicholas Koumjian, the mechanism's head, told reporters his team is examining the military's command structure to determine how orders for airstrikes are issued. "In particular, there are many airstrikes targeting and hitting schools," he said. "Children are often the victims of these airstrikes, and also hospitals."

Myanmar's government dismissed the IIMM report as "one-sided allegations against Myanmar's security forces based on unverifiable and inaccurate information," according to both Channel NewsAsia and The Straits Times. The junta disputes the characterization that its strikes are intentional attacks on civilians, and no international court has issued a criminal finding against military commanders over this specific strike. The IIMM's mandate is to collect evidence for potential future prosecutions, not to issue verdicts, and its report itself is an accusation, not a conviction.

That said, the pattern described by conflict monitor ACLED lines up with what happened Friday. ACLED reported in July that "the military's ongoing terror strategy includes a focus on civilian infrastructure and social gatherings, such as weddings and religious festivals, to maximise psychological impact," according to The Straits Times. Monasteries and schools are described by multiple outlets, including Daily Sabah and the Hindustan Times, as some of the most frequently hit public buildings.

A priest shot three times, hours away

The monastery bombing wasn't the only attack on a religious site that day. In Mohnyin, in Kachin state, two masked gunmen walked into St. Patrick Catholic Church during Friday morning services and opened fire on Father Paul Hkwi Shane Aung, according to Breitbart, citing Union of Catholic Asian News. He had just finished reading scripture. Witnesses said the gunmen fired once entering the church, again at the center aisle, then approached the priest and fired a third time. He was hit in the jaw, hand and thigh, survived, and was transferred to a hospital in Myitkyina. The shooters fled on motorcycle and remained at large as of Friday afternoon.

No group has claimed responsibility, and it's not established who carried out the church shooting. Kachin state sits at the center of fighting between the junta and the Kachin Independence Army, one of the most effective rebel forces in the country, which has captured dozens of military outposts since launching an offensive last October. An activist told UCA News that "anti-social elements are fomenting religious and ethnic conflict as the civil war in the military-ruled nation has entered a critical phase."

Breitbart's coverage notes a March incident where Baptist pastor Nammye Hkun Jaw Li was shot in the stomach and head by unidentified gunmen in Kachin state after criticizing the government. That March killing is a separate, unsolved case. No one has been charged in either shooting, and neither Breitbart nor UCA News names a perpetrator.

What's unresolved

The Myanmar military has not responded to any outlet's request for comment on the monastery strike. No independent verification of the bombing exists beyond opposition fighters and rescue workers on the ground, since foreign journalists have almost no access to Sagaing region. The junta held elections around the start of 2026 that it billed as a return to normal governance, according to The Straits Times, while the war that has killed more than 100,000 people since the 2021 coup grinds on with no ceasefire in sight.