Open Sources Show Myanmar Junta Airstrike Damages Despite Post-Earthquake Ceasefire
Bellingcat has identified at least 22 villages damaged by airstrikes in Myanmar, despite a temporary ceasefire declared by the State Administrative Control (SAC) or the military junta from April 2 to 22 following a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit the country on March 28. The ceasefire has been extended to April 30.
The earthquake’s epicentre was recorded just 16km northwest of Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar, and it struck just before 1pm local time. More than 3,000 people died and aid groups report that over 17 million people living in earthquake-affected areas are in urgent need of food, water, shelter and healthcare.
The country, which has already been devastated by four years of civil war, continues to be hit with multiple aftershocks. The SAC, ruling Myanmar since seizing power from the democratically elected government in 2021, declared a temporary pause to fighting only after the main opposition coalition announced one – except in the case of defensive actions.
Bellingcat has geolocated at least 19 villages damaged in military assaults during the first 20 days of the ceasefire. Two of them were identified from ground reporting. Three additional villages were damaged after the earthquake but before the ceasefire – bringing the total to 22 villages.
The airstrikes targeted civilian areas in territory held by rebel forces and territory where the junta is fighting to regain control. The villages damaged after the ceasefire were geolocated by cross-referencing our findings with NASA FIRMS or satellite imagery alongside local and other media sources.
Villages bombed since the earthquake on March 28; the epicentre is marked in black, yellow and red
“It’s quite clear that only the military can do airstrikes. The rebels don’t have aircrafts,” Aye Chan Naing, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), one of Myanmar’s largest independent media organisations, told Bellingcat.
Lacking jets or fighter planes, resistance groups heavily rely on commercial drones “improvised into sort of military use,” Naing said.
Targeting and scaring civilians is part of the military’s strategy, he explained. “If you support the rebels, then you know we [the military] are going to burn the village.”
“At a moment when the sole focus should be on ensuring humanitarian aid gets to disaster zones, the military is instead launching attacks,” said UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani on April 11.
“Since the earthquake, military forces have reportedly carried out over 120 attacks – more than half of them after their declared ceasefire was due to have gone into effect on 2 April,” she told journalists.
According to local media reports, the Myanmar military carried out an aerial attack just hours after the earthquake struck. Anti-junta armed group TNLA claimed that the military bombed Nawng Len village, approximately 120km from the earthquake’s epicentre in the eastern Shan State. Seven members of a TNLA-aligned ethnic armed organisation (EAO) were reportedly killed in the attack.
We were not able to independently confirm the airstrike, but we were able to geolocate images of several damaged buildings, to a location in the north of the village. The intact buildings can be seen on Google Earth imagery in late January.
The military junta did not respond to Bellingcat’s request for comment.
Attacks in Worst-Affected Earthquake Areas
Out of the 22 villages we identified, 14 of them are in either Sagaing or Mandalay, which were some of the worst affected areas by the earthquake. Large parts of both regions are located in central Myanmar, where a lot of townships are either contested or under junta control.
The military tries to cut the rebels’ survival pipeline, Naing told Bellingcat.
“They understand that the rebels cannot survive without civilians because that’s where they get food and maybe tax money,” he said.
Since the rebels don’t have permanent bases, members are difficult to locate. While drones might strike and kill a few individuals, it’s much easier for the army to identify and target areas where civilians live, Naing added.
On April 9, twenty people were reportedly killed in an airstrike in Nan Khan in Sagaing’s Wuntho Township. We were able to geolocate images of damaged buildings to the coordinates 23.9983922,95.8881422.
Just days before this attack, on April 6, Thone Pan Hla in Chaung-U Township was reportedly attacked in an airstrike, killing three members of a family. “The motivation for such an attack on a village of melon farmers is difficult to understand. It seems to be an effort to terrorise a civilian population that strongly supports the anti-regime National Unity Government (NUG) and its armed rebel PDF wing,” reported The Times newspaper. NUG is the country’s parallel government in exile, elected democratically and ousted in the 2021 coup.
About 25km northeast of Thone Pan Hla is the village of Ngar Shan also in Chaung-U Township. Local news outlets reported that the village was burned down by the junta, just days after the earthquake. While we weren’t able to geolocate specific images or independently confirm the cause of the fire, thermal hotspots were detected at the site on March 31. This lines up with the timeline and reports of 170 houses being burned in Ngar Shan on April 1 local time.
Images of the destruction shared on Facebook show the village in ruins. However, NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System, FIRMS, detects thermal hotspots in the entire village in the early hours of that day.
A false-colour infrared map from Sentinel Hub’s Copernicus platform also reveals signs of destruction in the village. Though commonly used to assess vegetation health, this type of imagery shows plant-covered areas in deep red, while cities and exposed ground are grey or tan, and water appears blue or black. Following the attack, exposed ground, indicative of possible damage, can be seen primarily in the northwest of the village.
Chaung-U Township is located in the southern Sagaing region, where the geography poses challenges for resistance armies.
“Unlike ethnic resistance groups along Myanmar’s borders, or those in northern Sagaing near India, the resistance forces in southern Sagaing do not have foreign borders across which they can attempt to retreat,” wrote Centre for Information Resilience’s Myanmar Witness in a December 2024 report.
Sagaing remains an epicentre for violence with a strong resistance presence due to the region’s strategic importance. A state of emergency was declared in the state following the quake.
Repeated Bombings in Lost Territories
Another region of strategic importance is Mandalay where the Central Military Command is located in the Mandalay Palace, reported to have been damaged in the earthquake. Mandalay is also a logistical hub in Myanmar’s heartland, and since late last year, the SAC has been trying to retake townships it has lost there.
Two of those townships are Thabeikkyin and Singu. Both were attacked during the ceasefire.
On April 19, the Myanmar military reportedly carried out an airstrike on the village of Yae Htwet in Thabeikkyin Township. The attack killed at least 27 people, according to the BBC. The report added that pro-military Telegram channels claimed the attack targeted PDF camps, the armed wing of the anti-regime National Unity Government.
Just a day earlier, 13 people were reportedly killed in an attack on Leik Kya village, located 3km north of Yae Htwet.
A separate aerial attack was reportedly carried out over a village in Thabeikkyin, killing two people. It took place on April 13 in Chaung Gyi along the highway running through the village. We were able to identify distinct features of the roof of buildings across the street from the attack and, along with the location of trees, match satellite images of the area.
Bellingcat also geolocated a school (here: 22.689505, 96.016978) in Singu Township, the site of a reported airstrike in Kyi Tauk Pau village that injured six people.
Destruction of Schools and Religious Sites
The junta has a track record of targeting schools. According to a tally by Radio Free Asia last November, nearly 200 schools were hit by airstrikes since the 2021 military coup in regions and states which have seen fighting by resistance forces opposing junta rule.
A school in Sagaing’s Shwebo Township was reportedly bombed during the ceasefire on April 20, killing two people, including a pregnant woman. According to DVB, Shwebo Township People’s Administration, a local anti-junta governance body, said displaced people were taking shelter in the school.
Bellingcat found four schools and seven religious sites – monasteries and churches – damaged in recent attacks.
Peter Bouckaert of the human rights and advocacy group Fortify Rights called the attacks on churches and monasteries that could be hosting people displaced by the earthquake “a great violation of the laws of war”.
“These are protected sites under international humanitarian law. They are direct deliberate attacks on these protected institutions,” he told Bellingcat.
The junta has a history of attacking religious sites. During the ceasefire, a Baptist church was bombed in Mindat in the neighbouring Chin State, where several armed opposition groups have emerged since 2021. While there were no reported casualties at the church, six people were killed in the attack on the town.
Mindat was taken over by resistance forces last year amid reports of hundreds of homes destroyed by alleged junta shelling, arson, and airstrikes. A lot of this damage is now visible on Google Maps’ updated imagery from January 2025.
Several churches in Chin State have been damaged in the past few years, Myanmar Witness had found in 2023. It is the only Christian-majority state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Battle for Control of Town Rages Amid Ceasefire
Indaw is a small town close to the border with Kachin, a state partly controlled by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA)-led resistance forces. Indaw was reportedly bombed on April 1 when it was still under the junta’s control. According to local accounts, two people were killed and eight others injured. A monastery was damaged in the attack. We were able to geolocate the images of the aftermath by comparing old pictures and satellite images of the monastery with structures still standing after the recent attack.
The destruction on April 1 was just one of the many assaults the town has witnessed since resistance forces launched an offensive in August last year. The junta’s reported airstrikes against the resistance displaced hundreds of people, and many others fled.
Despite the ceasefire, on April 8, resistance forces captured Indaw after months of fighting. However, the junta has continued to carry out airstrikes in civilian areas, according to reports. As Richard Horsey, Senior Adviser on Myanmar at Crisis Group, previously told Bellingcat, the junta often bombs areas it has lost so people have nothing left to return to.
Images show that large parts of Indaw were destroyed last year. Source: Google Earth Pro Imagery
Attacks During Burmese New Year
The military regime reportedly carried out airstrikes on monasteries over the four-day Thingyan or Burmese New Year festival from April 13 to 16. According to data compiled by an independent news site, The Irrawaddy, at least 23 civilians were killed in these attacks.
In one of the monastery attacks, six people were reportedly killed and 20 others injured. Bellingcat geolocated the aftermath of the reported strike. This was in Kan Ni village in Kawkareik Township in Kayin, one of the southernmost states of the country.
Despite Widespread Violations, Junta Extends Ceasefire
The Myanmar military has now extended the ceasefire to April 30 in a move to “expedite relief and rebuilding efforts”, but reports say that aid is being restricted. “The SAC is weaponising humanitarian assistance,” Surachanee Sriyai, interim director at the Center for Sustainable Humanitarian Action to Displaced Ethnic Communities, told Bellingcat, explaining that aid is not reaching areas that aren’t under the SAC’s control. An analysis by the BBC in November last year reported that the military only has full control of 21% of Myanmar’s territory.
Sriyai noted that while the earthquake has drawn some attention to Myanmar, the country has already been in critical need of aid due to the prolonged armed conflict. Meanwhile, bombings persist even during the extended ceasefire period.
Members of Bellingcat’s Global Authentication Project, including Afton Knox, Nicole Kiess, Stéphanie Ladel, and Max F. Wan contributed research to this piece. Interactive map by Miguel Ramalho.
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