Myanmar: 29 killed in artillery strike on camp for displaced people

At least 29 people, including children, have been killed in an artillery strike on a camp for displaced people in Myanmar.

The camp is located close to a military camp of Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an insurgent group fighting the country's ruling military Junta.

A spokesman for the KIA told the BBC that all the victims were civilians.

Myanmar has been embroiled in conflict since a 2021 military coup displaced the country's government.

The exiled National Unity Government (NUG), has blamed the Junta for the attack on the camp, describing it as a "war crime and crime against humanity".

The BBC has approached the military for comment.

The military has increasingly used air strikes against their opponents since seizing power from the civilian government.

Images shared by local media showed bodies being pulled from the rubble and dozens of body bags lying side by side.

The attack late on Monday night happened in the Mong Lai Khet Quarter - some two miles away from the KIA's headquarters in the town of Laiza.

The area has witnessed conflict for a long time.

However, locals say that there has been no fighting take place near the camp in recent times.

It sits close to the Chinese border and is home to many civilians living in internal displacement camps in and around the town.

The KIA is one of the largest of dozens of ethnic insurgent groups that have been battling the military for decades, even before the coup.

Colonel Naw Bu of the KIA told the BBC that a total of 56 people had been injured in the latest attack, 44 of whom had been taken to hospital for treatment.

Last October, more than 60 people were killed when the military launched airstrikes on Antpa in Kachin State.