Myanmar military says armed groups used hospital it bombed, killing dozens
Al Jazeera
Witnesses at the hospital and the UN say the attack killed medics, patients and may ‘amount to a war crime’.
Myanmar’s military has acknowledged it conducted an air strike on a hospital in the western state of Rakhine that killed 33 people, whom it accused of being armed members of opposition groups and their supporters, but not civilians.
Witnesses, aid workers, rebel groups and the United Nations have said the victims were civilians at the hospital.
In a statement published by the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Saturday, the military’s information office said armed groups, including the ethnic Arakan Army and the People’s Defence Force, used the hospital as their base.
It said the military carried out necessary security measures and launched a counterterrorism operation against the general hospital in Mrauk-U township on Wednesday.
However, the United Nations on Thursday condemned the attack on the facility providing emergency care, obstetrics and surgical services in the area, saying that it was part of a broader pattern of strikes causing harm to civilians and civilian objects that are devastating communities across the country.
