At least 40 dead and 80 injured after paraglider drops bombs at Myanmar festival in chilling echo of Hamas Oct 7 attack
AT LEAST 40 people have been killed after a paraglider reportedly dropped two bombs on festivalgoers in Myanmar.
Children are among the victims of the deadly overnight attack which is believed to have been conducted by the Myanmar military.
The attacks echo the chilling Nova music festival ambush carried out by Hamas terrorists on paragliders on October 7, 2023.
Hundreds of people gathered in central Myanmar’s Chaung U township on Monday evening for the Thadingyut full moon festival.
In a haunting seven-minute attack, the military has been accused of dropping bombs onto the crowd, according to a member of the committee that organised the event.
Young children were among those killed with over 80 people left injured.
Witnesses reported being hit by shrapnel as the bombs exploded on impact and bodies fell to the ground.
One of the event organisers said: “Children were completely torn apart.”
Dozens of funerals were arranged on Tuesday but many bodies are still unable to be identified.
Officials are still said to be “collecting body parts” from the festival site, according to organisers.
Many of those at the event were protesting against the current regime in Myanmar after years of civil unrest.
Thousands have died and millions have been displaced since 2021, when the army forcefully seized power.
A bloody civil war made up of armed resistance groups and ethnic militias has been ongoing.
The military has responded by launching airstrikes on the perpetrators, report the BBC.
The latest strikes are believed to relate to these as the festival was held in the highly contested Sagaing region which has been a key battleground in the war.
Large swaths of the township are under the control of volunteer militias, widely known as the People’s Defence Force (PDF), established after the coup.
They have been in a daily battle against the country’s military government.
An official in the local PDF told BBC Burmese that they had received information about the incoming air attack during the mass gathering.
They desperately tried to urge the crowd to disperse but within minutes the motorised paraglider flew over the festival, they claimed.
Paramotors have become a constant form of attack for Myanmar’s military due to a lack of aircraft and helicopters.
It follows a string of punishing international sanctions which has limited the support and aid being sent to the country.
Human rights group Amnesty International released a scathing statement on the attack.
They said it must serve “as a gruesome wake-up call that civilians in Myanmar need urgent protection.”
Joe Freeman, Amnesty’s Myanmar researcher, added: “The international community may have forgotten about the conflict in Myanmar, but the Myanmar military is taking advantage of reduced scrutiny to carry out war crimes with impunity.”
Myanmar is due to hold general elections in December – marking the first vote since the 2021 coup.
What happened at the Nova music festival?
ON October 7, 2023 Hamas began their grisly campaign of terror in southern Israel.
Gunmen descended on paragliders into the desert Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im and rained bullets down on innocent revellers.
At least 364 were killed at the trance party – an event designed as a celebration of “peace and love” and now etched forever in the collective psyche of Israel.
They went on to kill 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged some 250 hostages into Gaza.
A major conflict has erupted since with the Israeli military launching several assaults on Gaza – resulting in thousands of civilian deaths.
Stories of survivors from the horrific terror attack have emerged recently with its one year anniversary.
A model who survived the Nova festival massacre has told how she was forced to hide in a skip.
Noam Ben David, 28, was shot in the hip and legs on October 7 last year – but kept quiet as she hid under a pile of dead bodies to save herself from the bloodbath.
She told The Sun her partner David Neman was among dozens slaughtered before her very eyes in a sick game of “Russian Roulette”.
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