Myanmar market airstrike kills 50, volunteers say

A reported Myanmar military airstrike on a market in western Rakhine state has killed 50 people and injured 58, local volunteers said Tuesday, as families searched for bodies around the charred site.

Witnesses said the military's air force raided the riverside commercial hub in Kyauktaw town around midday on Monday. The Myanmar military could not be reached for comment.

Aid worker Wai Hun Aung said the death toll had reached 50 and warned the final figure could be higher because some bodies were lost in fires after the bombing. A second local volunteer gave the same death toll. The Arakan Army, an ethnic rebel force that controls the area, also said 50 people had died and said those killed were passersby, market vendors, shoppers and cargo loaders.

Families gathered nearby to claim bodies laid under plastic sheeting or placed in plywood coffins. One man, Aung Chay, said he was still searching for the remains of his brother-in-law, whom he believed was killed in the attack.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was alarmed by reports of the airstrike and the rising death toll, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Dujarric said continuing violence in Rakhine showed conditions did not exist for the safe, voluntary and sustainable return of refugees and displaced people, including Rohingya. UN rights chief Volker Turk said the strike highlighted the plight faced by civilians across Myanmar, especially in Rakhine.

The market and an adjacent bridge had become an important trading hub during Myanmar's civil war, on a river route to India in a state largely cut off from the rest of the country. The Arakan Army controls almost all of Rakhine, except for a few urban centres still defended by the military.

Conflict monitor ACLED estimates that more than 100,000 people have been killed in Myanmar since the 2021 military coup. UN data says nearly half a million people are displaced in Rakhine because of the conflict.