An airstrike on Friday (August 21, 2026) by Myanmar’s military on a Buddhist monastery in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region killed 14 people who were taking part in a week-long meditation retreat, an opposition group and a resident said.
A villager who spoke on condition of anonymity also confirmed the death toll to The Associated Press . The villager, who lost a relative in the airstrike, said that people fled to a nearby community after burying bodies of the victims. The attack occurred on Friday (August 21) at 9 a.m. in Swel Le Oh village in Myaung township, about 75 kilometres (45 miles) west of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, according to Nway Oo, a spokesperson for the Civil Defence and Security Organization of Myaung Township, or CDSOM. Nway Oo said 14 people, including three women, were killed and 20 others were wounded when a jet fighter dropped a bomb in the compound of the village’s monastery. The villager said the jet fighter dropped two bombs 15 minutes apart, with the second bomb damaging a house near the monastery where more than 100 people were on a week-long retreat during Buddhist Lent.
