At LEAST ELEVEN school children died in an air strike and firing on a Myanmar village, the UN children’s agency said, an attack the country’s junta said targeted rebels hiding in the area.

Myanmar has been in chaos since the military seized power in a coup in February last year, with nearly 2,300 civilians killed in a crackdown on dissent according to a local monitoring group.

The Sagaing region in the country’s northwest has seen some of the fiercest fighting, and amid clashes between anti-coup fighters and the military, entire villages have been burned down.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF condemned Friday’s incident in Depeyin township in Sagaing.

“On 16 September, at least 11 children died in an air strike and indiscriminate fire in civilian areas,” UNICEF said in a statement issued Monday.

It said schools must be safe and never targeted.

“At least 15 children from the same school are still missing,” UNICEF said, calling for their immediate safe release.

Video footage obtained from a local community group shows a classroom with blood on the floor, damage to the roof and a mother crying over her son’s dead body.

The junta confirmed they had sent troops in helicopters to the village after receiving a tip-off that fighters from the Kachin Independence Army — an ethnic rebel group — and from a local anti-coup militia were moving weapons in the area.

The military accused the rebel fighters of using civilians as human shields, and said it had seized mines and explosives from the village.

Save the Children Asia Regional Director Hassan Noor expressed condolences to the families and said schools should be off limits and the safety of students protected.

“How many more incidents like this need to take place before action is taken?” Noor said, urging the UN Security Council and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to take swift action.

Fruitless

ASEAN has led so far fruitless diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Myanmar and its leaders will meet in Phnom Penh in November to discuss limited progress on a peace plan.

Last Friday’s attack occurred in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin, also known as Depayin, about 70 miles north-west of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.

School administrator Mar Mar said she was trying to get pupils to safe hiding places in ground-floor classrooms when two of four Mi-35 helicopters hovering north of the village began attacking, firing machine guns and heavier weapons at the school, which is in the compound of the village’s Buddhist monastery.

Mar Mar works at the school with 20 volunteers who teach 240 pupils.

She has been hiding in the village with her three children since fleeing for safety to avoid the government crackdown after last year participating in a civil disobedience movement against the military takeover.

She uses the pseudonym Mar Mar to protect herself and relatives from the military.

She said she had not expected trouble since the aircraft had been over the village before without any incident.

“Since the students had done nothing wrong, I never thought that they would be brutally shot by machine guns,” she told the Associated Press by phone yesterday.

By the time she and the pupils and teachers were able to take shelter in the classrooms, one teacher and a seven-year-old student had already been shot in the neck and head and Mar Mar had to use pieces of clothing to try to stanch the bleeding.

“They kept shooting into the compound from the air for an hour,” Mar Mar said.

“They didn’t stop even for one minute. All we could do at that time was chant Buddhist mantras.”

When the air attack stopped, about 80 soldiers entered the monastery compound, firing their guns at the buildings.

The soldiers then ordered everyone in the compound to come out of the buildings.

Mar Mar said she saw about 30 pupils with wounds on their backs, thighs, faces and other parts of the bodies. Some had lost limbs.

“The children told me that their friends were dying,” she said.

“I also heard a student yelling, ‘It hurts so much. I can’t take it anymore. Kill me, please.’ This voice still echoes in my ears.”

She said at least six children were killed in the school and a 13-year-old boy working at a fishery in a nearby village was also fatally shot.

At least six adults were also killed in the air attack in other parts of the village, she said.

The bodies of the dead children were taken away by the soldiers.

More than 20 people, including nine wounded children and three teachers, were also taken by the soldiers, she said.

Two of those captured were accused of being members of the anti-government People’s Defence Force, the armed wing of the resistance to the military.

Security forces also burned down a house in the village, causing residents to flee.

Tabayin

A volunteer in Tabayin assisting displaced people, who asked not to be identified because of fear of government reprisals, said the bodies of the dead children were cremated by the soldiers in the nearby Ye U township.

“I am now telling the international community about this because I want redress for our children,” Mar Mar said.

“Instead of humanitarian aid, what we really need is genuine democracy and human rights.”

Myanmar Now, an online news service, and other independent Myanmar media also reported the attack and the pupils’ deaths.

A day after the attack, the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper reported that security forces had gone to check the village after receiving information that the members of the People’s Defence Force were hiding there.

The report said members of the People’s Defence Force and their allies from the Kachin Independence Army, an ethnic rebel group, were hiding inside houses and the monastery and started shooting at the security forces, causing deaths and injuries among village residents.

It said the injured were taken to hospitals but did not mention the situation of the pupils.

According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors human rights in Myanmar, at least 2,298 civilians have been killed by the security forces since the army seized power last year.

The UN has documented 260 attacks on schools and education personnel since the coup, the UN Child Rights Committee said in June.

With reporting from AFP