A 15-year-old girl was killed and two men were injured early Thursday morning after soldiers opened fire following an explosion near a neighborhood administration office in Mandalay, according to inhabitants.
The incident happened in Nyaung Kwe, a ward in Aungmyethazan Township in Mandalay, around 7 a.m., residents said. None of the victims could be identified at the time of reporting.
“We heard a loud bang and the soldiers started shooting non-stop. The girl died instantly and two men were injured. A social service group came to pick them all up,” a man who witnessed the incident told Myanmar Now.
One of the injured men was shot in the shoulder, while the other was injured in the ear, he added.
No group has claimed responsibility for the explosion and it is not known if there were any casualties. Attempts to contact the Aungmyethazan police station for information were unsuccessful.
According to some social media posts quoting junta soldiers, the girl was killed in the blast after two men on motorbikes threw a bomb at the neighborhood office.
This account has been disputed by locals.
“The bomb didn’t kill her. The soldiers’ careless fire killed her,” said a local resident who did not want to be identified.
Shortly after the three victims were taken away, soldiers blocked the road near the neighborhood office and began interrogating pedestrians, residents said.
A similar incident occurred last month when a five-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet after soldiers opened fire in response to a series of three explosions in Chanmyathazi township in Mandalay.
Regime forces have repeatedly used excessive force against civilians since the army seized power in a coup last year. In many cases, soldiers and police fired indiscriminately into crowds or even pushed them with vehicles.
The junta rarely comments on these incidents, except to deny responsibility.
In a speech at the elite Defense Services Academy last month, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing claimed his regime was trying to ‘minimize bloodshed’ in its efforts to crush resistance on his diet.
