Fifty dead in a market, 5,000 deported to the fire: Myanmar's week of shame

KYAUKTAW: It was midday on Monday, and the market in Kyauktaw township had more than 200 shops busy with vendors, customers and transport workers. Then the junta's warplanes came. When the smoke cleared, 50 people were dead and at least 58 wounded, many of them critically — the deadliest airstrike in Myanmar's Rakhine state since a hospital bombing killed at least 30 people last December. Women and children were among the bodies recovered, according to photos shared by local aid workers. The Arakan Army, which is battling the military in the region, said the junta 'deliberately targeted densely populated markets, schools, civilians, and residential buildings through airstrikes.' A Myanmar government spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment; the military has previously said it exercises maximum restraint to avoid civilian harm. The United Nations condemned the attack in the strongest terms. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres 'strongly condemns the attacks and calls on all parties to end the violence immediately,' his spokesperson said. UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the strike raised serious concerns about respect for international humanitarian law, describing Myanmar as a country 'wracked by extreme violence' — and pointedly highlighted abuses against the Rohingya by both the army and the opposition Arakan Army. Hours after the market was bombed, Malaysia began implementing a plan to deport some 5,000 Myanmar nationals under a reported agreement with the military rulers. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, says it was not involved in identifying those being returned, who have reportedly been held in detention centres. Türk urged the authorities to halt the process immediately, warning that conditions in Myanmar are 'far from safe and sustainable.' The UN chief echoed the call over the reported return of some 1,500 people, with UNHCR stressing the oldest principle in refugee law: no one should be sent back to a place where they risk persecution or torture. The Philippines, chair of the ASEAN regional bloc, expressed concern over the airstrike deaths and said it stood ready to facilitate discussions on assisting Myanmar — guided, it said, by the bloc's consensus-based approach and the aspiration of a solution that is 'Myanmar-owned and led.' Myanmar has been locked in a nationwide civil war since the 2021 coup, with an alliance of armed groups fighting the military. The conflict has killed around 100,000 people and displaced over 3.5 million in one of Southeast Asia's poorest nations. The continuing violence, the UN says, underscores a reality no deportation paperwork can wish away: the conditions for the safe return of refugees and displaced people to Myanmar simply do not exist. Fifty bodies in a market at midday. Five thousand people loaded toward the same fire. The arithmetic of this war is written in the one currency its victims have left — their lives.