LANTERNS, BLOOD, AND DUST

The attack on Bon To village in Myanmar’ central Sagaing region marks a horrifying new chapter in a civil war that has already claimed thousands of civilian lives.

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When a motorised paraglider dropped bombs on a school compound where families had gathered for a Buddhist festival, at least twenty-four people were killed and over fifty injured, many of them children. The brutality of this assault is shocking even by the grim standards of Myanmar’s post-coup violence. ‘The symbolism could not have been more tragic: a festival of light transformed into a night of fire and blood. The airstrike was not a clash between two armed sides but a deliberate assault on a community celebrating peace and faith. It reveals how the country’s military, stripped of legitimacy and trust, has resorted to terror as its last means of control. The para-glider—a crude, low-cost alternative to fighter aircraft—has become a weapon of intimidation in the regime’s campaign against its own people. That such an apparatus can deliver so much devastation to a defenceless village exposes the complete breakdown of restraint, accountability, and moral order in Myanmar.

‘The tragedy also reflects how far the civil war has metastasised since the generals seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’ elected government in 2021. Resistance movements now control large parts of the countryside, especially in Sagaing, Chin, and Kayah regions.