Myanmar’s military regime confirmed today that it had carried out an airstrike that killed dozens of people in a village in the central part of the country, in an area controlled by insurgents.

“There was an office opening ceremony of the People’s Defense Force (…) yesterday (Tuesday) around 08:00 in the village of Pazi Gi. We attacked this location,” military junta spokesman Zhao Min Tun confirmed on Tuesday night.

According to the spokesman, some of the dead were uniformed fighters, however he admitted that “there may have been people in civilian clothes” at the place where the bombing took place, who were helping the “terrorists”.

“According to information we received from the field, people were killed not only because of our own attack. There were mines laid by the People’s Defense Force around that area,” the regime spokesman said, adding that the shelling also hit caches of gunpowder, ammunition and mines.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said yesterday that he was “horrified” by the attack attributed to the military junta, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded that those responsible be brought to justice.

“It appears that children participating in dances, as well as other civilians, who were attending the opening ceremony of a center in Pazi Gi village, Kanbalu district, are among the victims,” ​​Mr. Turk said in a press release issued by his services. .

At least 50 people were killed and dozens wounded in the raid, according to reports by the BBC’s Burmese service, the Irrawaddy news website and Radio Free Asia, but a rescuer from a rebel organization told AFP that up to a hundred were dead, adding that among the victims they were women and children.

Before the air force attack on the village, dozens of residents had gathered for the opening of a local force office.

In Sagaing district, near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, there is strong resistance to the military junta: heavy fighting has been going on there for months.