Airstrike Threats Keep Displaced Residents from Returning to Ye Chaung Phyar

Burma News International (BNI) is a network of 15 independent media and news organizations based in and around Burma More than 1,000 displaced residents remain unable to return to their homes in Ye Chaungphyar, an area controlled by the New Mon State Party (NMSP) in southern Myanmar, due to ongoing military junta airstrikes and round-the-clock reconnaissance flights. The military junta’s air force bombed several villages in the Ye Chaungphyar area in late May, despite the absence of active ground clashes at the time. Frequent drone and aircraft surveillance flights have continued to patrol the area since the attacks. Currently, residents from at least five villages return briefly to their homes and plantations during the day to check on their properties, but retreat to safer makeshift shelters at night. “Planes come every day — sometimes during the day, sometimes at night, but at least once a day. People live in constant fear of another bombing. Some return to the village in the afternoon but refuse to stay overnight. Only about a third of the population risks sleeping there,” a resident told the Independent Mon News Agency. The late-May airstrikes also destroyed houses in Chaungnakwa village, which had been built through humanitarian donations from Japan’s Nippon Foundation. Local farmland and orchards were also heavily damaged. Displaced civilians are currently sheltering in monasteries, forest orchards, and the homes of relatives within safer zones of NMSP-controlled territory. Local humanitarian sources report that these families are now facing acute shortages of food and basic necessities. Beyond the threat of airstrikes, residents are increasingly concerned about the potential incursion of junta ground troops into the region. In late June, the military junta requested permission from the NMSP to use specific roads within its territory. The junta intends to move troops through NMSP and Karen National Union (KNU) areas to reach Three Pagodas Pass (Payathonzu), a strategic town on the Myanmar-Thailand border. NMSP officials have expressed deep concern over the development, while residents note that the threat of both air raids and ground incursions has shattered any remaining sense of security within the ethnic resistance-controlled zone.