Myanmar military airstrikes kill at least 15, including a newborn at a Mrauk-U maternity clinic and three children at a Loikaw school

Myanmar's military bombed a maternity clinic, a bridge and villages across four townships of Rakhine State on Sunday, November 1, killing 12 people and injuring 32, according to the Arakan Army and aid workers in the area. A day earlier, an air raid on a school in Loikaw, in eastern Karenni State, killed three children. Together the weekend strikes took at least 15 lives.

The youngest victim was a baby girl about a week old. An aid worker in Mrauk-U said she was a twin, was due to go home with her family the next day, and died when the clinic building collapsed. Her twin survived.

None of the figures has been independently confirmed. They come from the Arakan Army, which controls most of Rakhine, from local aid workers and from Karenni rights monitors. A spokesperson for the military-backed government did not respond to requests for comment.

Four townships, one afternoon

The Rakhine raids began before dawn and ended shortly after sunset. The Arakan Army's information department gave this breakdown, which adds up to the 12 dead and 32 injured cited by aid workers:

Time (Nov 1, local)	Place	Township	Killed	Injured
about 3:58am	Virathani town and Ywar Chaung Gyi village	Pauktaw (Virathani)	0	5
about 5:00pm	Sane Min Pyin village	Kyaukphyu	0	11
about 5:25pm	Wa Taung–Pan Pe Chaung bridge	Kyauktaw	7	7
about 5:27pm	Clinic and maternity ward, Thammaraza ward	Mrauk-U	5	9
Total			12	32

The pre-dawn raid on Virathani was carried out by a Y-12 transport plane, the group said; fighter jets carried out the evening strikes. Motorcycles, sidecar taxis and houses near the Kyauktaw bridge were destroyed. In Kyaukphyu, the 11 injured were five women and six men.

The Arakan Army also said the clinic in Mrauk-U was hit by cluster munitions. That detail has not been confirmed by other sources.

The clinic in Mrauk-U

Mrauk-U, a former royal capital known for its hundreds of stone temples, has been held by the Arakan Army since early 2024. Its main hospital was hit in an air raid last December that killed more than 30 people, and medical care in the town has since moved into temporary sites. Sunday's strike hit one of them: a makeshift clinic with a maternity ward near Ngwe Taung Pauk.

Besides the baby, four people died there, including health workers. Nine were injured, several of them medical staff, and nearby houses were damaged.

A school in Loikaw

The Loikaw strike came on Saturday, October 31. The Karenni Human Rights Group and Banyar Khun Aung, secretary of the Karenni Interim Executive Council, said a Y-12 aircraft and a fighter jet dropped more than 20 bombs on a school in the township. Three students were killed.

Accounts differ on the details. The rights group said five people were wounded and that classes were under way. Other local reports put the number of injured at eight and said the children had gathered for a nutrition programme during a holiday. Banyar Khun Aung said there had been no fighting or troop movement in the area, and called repeated bombing of a school where young children study "a war crime".

Loikaw lies close to the Thai border. Thailand has been flying fighter patrols along the frontier as the fighting spills over: houses on the Thai side have been damaged and at least one person injured. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said his government had asked Myanmar to exercise caution.

The government's position

The military, led by Min Aung Hlaing, seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government in February 2021 and now governs with him as president. It says it is waging a legitimate campaign against "terrorists" — the term it uses for the ethnic armed groups and resistance forces it is fighting. When UN investigators in August accused it of deliberately bombing civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals, its foreign ministry said the armed forces exercise "maximum restraint" to avoid harming civilians.

Air power has become the military's main weapon as it has lost ground. The Arakan Army now controls most of Rakhine and has pushed close to the state capital, Sittwe. The government has recently stepped up its campaign to retake territory, and air raids have increased with it.

How this compares with recent attacks

The weekend's toll follows a series of deadly raids in Rakhine:

• December 2025: a night strike on Mrauk-U General Hospital killed more than 30 people, among them patients; medical aid groups called it the deadliest attack on a health facility in Myanmar since the coup.
• Early October 2026: strikes on camps for displaced people in Kyauktaw and Ponnagyun townships killed at least 58 people.
• October 31 – November 1, 2026: at least 15 killed in Rakhine and Loikaw.

The United Nations estimates the civil war has killed about 100,000 people and forced more than 3.5 million from their homes. Rakhine is also home to the Rohingya Muslim minority; hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh over the years, and the fighting has left those who remain short of food, medicine and safe places to shelter.

What comes next

Local groups are still collecting names of the dead and injured, and the military has given no account of the strikes. With the Arakan Army closing in on Sittwe and the government pressing its counter-offensive, aid workers in Rakhine expect more air raids in the coming weeks.