The attack on Bon To village in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region marks a horrifying new chapter in a civil war that has already claimed thousands of civilian lives. When a motorised paraglider dropped bombs on a school compound where families had gathered for a Buddhist festival, at least twenty-four people were killed and over fifty injured, many of them children. The brutality of this assault is shocking even by the grim standards of Myanmar’s post-coup violence. The symbolism could not have been more tragic: a festival of light transformed into a night of fire and blood. The airstrike was not a clash between two armed sides but a deliberate assault on a community celebrating peace and faith. It reveals how the country’s military, stripped of legitimacy and trust, has resorted to terror as its last means of control. The paraglider—a crude, low-cost alternative to fighter aircraft—has become a weapon of intimidation in the regime’s campaign against its own people. That such an apparatus can deliver so much devastation to a defenceless village exposes the complete breakdown of restraint, accountability, and moral order in Myanmar.
The tragedy also reflects how far the civil war has metastasised since the generals seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in 2021. Resistance movements now control large parts of the countryside, especially in Sagaing, Chin, and Kayah regions. In response, the junta has adopted a strategy of collective punishment, targeting civilians suspected of sympathising with opposition groups. Villages have been bombed, schools torched, and crops destroyed to starve the rebellion into submission. Yet every act of terror only deepens the divide between the regime and the people. What was once an attempt to re-impose central authority has become a war of annihilation, fought through air raids and artillery strikes against those who have no means of defence. The Bon To bombing is emblematic of this shift from military engagement to indiscriminate violence. It demonstrates the regime’s willingness to deploy whatever technology remains at its disposal—whether Russian and Chinese-made aircraft or improvised paragliders—to spread fear rather than to achieve any strategic objective. This descent into tactical nihilism is also a reflection of the military’s eroding capacity. International sanctions, battlefield losses, and logistical constraints have weakened its conventional power, prompting the use of low-tech but deadly innovations. The air force that once flew combat missions now improvises with paragliders; the army that once sought obedience now governs through terror.
Beyond the immediate horror lies a deeper indictment of the international community’s paralysis. Nearly four years into Myanmar’s conflict, the world’s response remains fragmented and tepid. Statements of concern have replaced action, while sanctions have been undermined by porous borders and geopolitical calculations. Regional actors with the influence to intervene have limited themselves to diplomatic overtures that yield neither pressure nor peace. The result is an environment in which the military operates with near-total impunity, confident that its atrocities will provoke condemnation but not consequences. Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies face restrictions that make relief work dangerous and incomplete, leaving displaced families to fend for themselves in jungles and makeshift camps. The use of motorised paragliders for bombing raids should have sounded an alarm about how desperate and indiscriminate the conflict has become. Instead, it has been absorbed into the growing catalogue of Myanmar’s forgotten tragedies. Each attack chips away at the moral credibility of the world order that claims to protect human rights and civilian life. If the international community cannot prevent a military from dropping bombs on children gathered for a religious ceremony, its principles ring hollow.
The Bon To massacre is more than another episode in a long war; it is a test of humanity’s capacity to confront evil that no longer hides behind ideology or strategy. Myanmar’s people have lived for years under the shadow of a military that kills to remind them who holds power, yet they continue to resist, rebuild, and hope. Their resilience has become the last defence against complete despair. But endurance alone cannot secure justice or peace. It requires the world’s sustained attention and intervention—through humanitarian corridors, diplomatic isolation of the junta, and targeted sanctions that cut off its weapons and funding. Without such action, the cycle of violence will continue, with every village festival becoming a potential funeral. The image of a motorised paraglider circling over a school before releasing its bombs will remain a haunting metaphor for Myanmar’s tragedy: a nation suspended between sky and earth, between faith and fear, between the dream of freedom and the daily reality of death. The world’s silence is not neutrality—it is complicity.