Burma’s new defense minister, Lieutenant General Yar Pyae, claimed at an October event that the air force’s bombing campaign serves peace. At the same event, the junta renewed its invitation to ethnic armed groups to join peace talks and called on the People’s Defense Force (PDF), the armed wing of the opposition National Unity Government, to lay down its weapons.
Yar Pyae, who also chairs the junta’s National Solidarity and Peacemaking Negotiation Committee, spoke three weeks after a military airstrike on a market in Kyauktaw, Rakhine State, killed 50 people, according to aid workers and the Arakan Army (AA). During the weekend of the event, junta airstrikes killed at least 27 civilians across five states and regions.
The invitation followed an earlier peace initiative accompanied by continued bloodshed. After Min Aung Hlaing took the title of president in April 2026, the junta announced a “100-Day Peace Initiative,” running from April 21 to July 31, and invited ethnic armed groups to Naypyitaw for talks. The UN Special Rapporteur’s latest report found that about 753 civilians were killed nationwide during that period, with the military and allied militias responsible for 89 percent of those deaths.
Airstrikes allow the military to attack territory its ground troops cannot hold. In Rakhine, where the junta has lost 14 of 17 townships, the UN Human Rights Office found that the military relied primarily on air power to prevent the AA from advancing on Sittwe and Kyaukphyu. The AA has also overrun a major regional military headquarters since launching its offensive in November 2023, according to Agenzia Nova. ACLED senior analyst Su Mon said the junta’s September offensive to retake territory in Rakhine had produced no battlefield gains.
The UN Human Rights Office’s annual report to the Human Rights Council, covering June 2025 through May 2026, identified airstrikes as the leading cause of civilian deaths in Burma. Open sources recorded at least 2,592 air attacks during that period, a 17 percent increase over the previous year. Aerial attacks accounted for 845 of the 1,241 civilian deaths the office recorded.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Burmese rights monitor cited by the UN office, counted at least 8,075 civilians killed by the military between the February 2021 coup and May 31, 2026, including 1,074 children. The office said military restrictions prevented verification of thousands more deaths.
