The Myanmar military carried out a drone attack on Thayet Gone village, Gyobingauk Township in Tharrawaddy District, western Bago Region, on 20 August, killing a couple but sparing their two children, according to locals and revolutionary sources.
Troops based near Ah Lae Gone Police Station in an area known as Tha Dar Gyi dropped two bombs from a drone during the evening strike.
Ko Min Zaw Oo, 47, was killed instantly, while his wife, 49-year-old Daw Maw, died from severe injuries on the way to hospital. Three houses were also destroyed.
“At the time of the attack, Ko Min Zaw Oo, Daw Maw, and their daughter, a sixth-grade student, were at home. Another child, a fourth-grader, was at the neighbouring house. The children were unharmed, but their parents lost their lives,” a local resident said.
The surviving daughter described her ordeal:
“When I tried to flee, flames were blazing all around and I couldn’t run. I stayed where I was, but as the fire intensified, I jumped out. I yelled out to my parents when I reached the doorway, but they didn’t respond. Then corrugated iron sheets came crashing down and almost trapped me, but I managed to dodge them and run into another house,” she recounted.
Local residents said Thayet Gone was neither a base for resistance forces nor an area of active fighting, describing the strike as indiscriminate. “That village had nothing to do with revolutionary forces. We can’t understand why the junta targeted it. If revolutionary troops had been stationed there, perhaps it would be explainable. But it wasn’t like that – it’s truly unacceptable,” a resistance source from Bago Region said.
On the same evening, junta forces also carried out drone strikes and fired heavy artillery at Gyok Koe Pin, Kaing Gyi, and Ah Lae Gone villages, locals reported.