Bangkok, Dec 12: At least 34 patients and medical staff were killed in an airstrike by the Myanmar military on a hospital in an area controlled by a major rebel armed group. About 80 people were injured in the attack on the general hospital in Mrauk-U town, an area controlled by the ethnic Arakan Army in western Rakhine state, on Wednesday night.
Wai Hun Aung, a senior defence services official in Rakhine, said the jet fighter dropped two bombs at 9:13 pm. One hit a hospital ward and the other landed near the main hospital building. The airstrike destroyed most of the hospital building. Taxis and motorbikes parked near the hospital were also damaged.
The area, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal military counter-insurgency operation in 2017. The operation saw around 740,000 minority Rohingya Muslims flee across the border into Bangladesh, seeking safety. Ethnic tensions remain between Buddhist Rakhine and the Rohingya.