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Air Strike at Sagaing Monastery
A fighter jet dropped two bombs on Swel Le Oh village in Sagaing's Myaung township Friday, hitting a monastery hall where more than 100 people, many of them elderly, had gathered for a three-month meditation retreat during Buddhist Lent. Fourteen died and 20 were wounded; a rescuer said the aircraft circled back for a second pass while they worked. "It wasn't a mistaken target, they intentionally attacked a monastery," said Nway Oo Myaung, a pro-democracy rebel who was there.
Read more: AP News (villagers flee), SCMP (death toll), BBC (victims), DW (military claim), Daily Sabah (analysts)
Starlink Goes Dark
Starlink access cut out in Myanmar, knocking an estimated 13 million users (almost a quarter of the population) offline. Many had come to depend on SpaceX's dishes after years of shutdowns on the ground network. Almost two-fifths of the country's townships already have intermittent or total blackouts every month, and for resistance-held areas with no fiber and no cell towers, Starlink was frequently the only connection to the outside world. SpaceX has yet to explain the outage or give a timeline for the restoration of service.
Read more: SCMP
Families Hide Sons as Draft Quotas Double
Ward administrators across Mandalay have been told to double conscription quotas to 4-10 men, aged 18 to 35 per intake, starting in September, and residents say families are hiding sons or leaving the city. The regime has run 27 recruitment batches since forced conscription began in April 2024, bringing in an estimated 135,000 men. Deputy Home Affairs Minister Min Thu said authorities are coming up with lists of draft evaders and giving them to security forces for arrest. The regime has never published quota numbers at any level, be that national, city, township, or ward.
Read more: DVB
Junta Attacks Crossing It's Selling to Moscow
Troops in southern Tanintharyi backed by drone strikes and daily artillery have been pushing through Thayetchaung, Launglon, and Myitta townships since mid-August, trying to wrest the Hteekhee trade corridor from KNU Brigade 4. This is also the crossing that the junta has been showing off to Russian investors. Infantry Battalion 104 has been shelling areas along the Launglon-Maungmagan Road, and more than 10 area villages have emptied out, as local defense forces expect the offensive to widen over the coming days.
Read more: BNI Online
Junta Burns a Path to Dawei Port
About 700 troops have moved through Tanintharyi Region since July, burning homes and clearing land around the Dawei Special Economic Zone, the deep-sea port that was once celebrated (and pitched) as a bypass to the Strait of Malacca. Russian-made Su-30SME jets are flying air support, giving the army an edge over scattered Tanintharyi People's Defence Force units trying to defend the area. Local group MAGGA Initiative says the military captured and killed three humanitarian workers in Yebyu Township after they ran into an army convoy. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been talking up the prospect of jobs for small and medium businesses inside the zone; Naypyidaw continues to say the corridor can cut cargo transit times by four to six days (as compared to via the strait), but how much of the site is currently secured is unclear, and construction has mostly been stalled since 2013.
Read more: Militarnyi (offensive), Defense Post
Rubio Designates Min Zin "Wrongfully Detained"
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Chiang Mai-based scholar Min Zin "wrongfully detained," a month ahead of Xi Jinping's Washington visit. Min Zin, a naturalized US citizen and founder of the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar, was taken into custody in Yunnan while attending an academic conference at the Chinese government's invitation. Beijing says he was held on suspicion of espionage endangering national security. ISP-M's work covers China's dealings in the borderlands, where Beijing has been accused of backing both the junta and anti-junta factions.
Read more: DVB (family reaction), Myanmar Now (Xi visit timing)
Ye Win Oo Picks Bangkok for First Foreign Trip
Ye Win Oo, given the military's top job when Min Aung Hlaing moved into the presidency in April, chose Bangkok for his first foreign outing, meeting Thai army chief Ukris Boontanondha to talk about the shared border, drug trafficking, and cyberscam networks. The agenda also covered counterterrorism, training, and humanitarian and disaster relief. It comes after Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's welcome of Min Aung Hlaing earlier this month, and the Thai foreign minister is framing the outreach as "not about legitimacy; it's about reality." UN experts have dismissed this year's election as a "sham," staged as the junta tries to end five years of isolation since the 2021 coup.
Read more: Al Jazeera
Naypyidaw Verifies 308k Rohingya, Blocks Return
Nine years after the 2017 crackdown, Naypyidaw says it has verified 308,000 of the 820,000 names Bangladesh has put forward for repatriation, but has hastened to add that it will not be taking anyone back until Rakhine State is safe. The military no longer controls most of the region, as much of it held by the Arakan Army.
Read more: ReliefWeb, DVB (sea escapes), DW (EU aid), ReliefWeb (sea deaths)
Minsk Trip Yields Nine Deals and Army Boots
Nine agreements signed in Minsk run the gamut of defense, security, trade, and public health, and even include a footwear factory (location undisclosed) that’s to be built by insolvent Belarusian shoemaker Belvest, whose $85 million debt has it hunting new markets. Perhaps unrelatedly, Quartermaster-General Zaw Myo Tin is looking for new boots for the armed forces. Min Aung Hlaing also set by-elections for the 102 townships that were skipped in the 2025-2026 phased vote for "early 2027," and invited Belarusian observers to monitor them.
Read more: DVB (visa exemption), DVB (footwear factory), By (Lukashenko)
Cholera Follows the Floodwaters into Yangon
Cholera has killed three people, one in Yangon and two in Sittwe, and hospitalized about 500 with what is suspected to be cholera in the nation’s commercial capital. Authorities haven’t directly connected the outbreak to the monsoon, but flooding has displaced thousands of households in Ayeyarwady after the Ngawun River embankment breached at Laymyethna, and another 538 households in Kayin State.
Read more: The Malaysian Reserve (response teams), ReliefWeb (flooding), ReliefWeb (aid access)
Kachin Villagers Torch KIA Checkpoint
Residents in Kachin State set a KIA checkpoint ablaze after troops there shot and injured a civilian driver, the latest trouble following months of rising anger about the fees that the locals are charged by those running the post. The Kachin Independence Army has spent years fighting the junta; but this time the target of public fury was one of its own toll gates.
Read more: Myanmar Now
That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.
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