In November, during his first known trip to China, Min Aung Hlaing visited Zhongyue Aviation UAV Firefighting-Drone in Chongqing and “observed the advanced drones created by the company”, according to Myanmar state media.
The firm did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.
Myanmar military sources told AFP their supplies of drones had increased after Min Aung Hlaing’s journey.
The military has become “much more accurate” in its use of offensive drones, said Dave Eubank of the Free Burma Rangers, a Christian aid group that has long worked in conflict areas in Myanmar, adding they were helping it exploit its huge advantage in firepower.
In 2021, air strikes were 500 to 1,000 metres off target, he told AFP. “By 2022, they were within 500 metres. By 2023, they were within 10-20 metres.”
– ‘Like dogs’ –
The clashes in Moe Bye are an overspill from fighting in Kayah state, a hotbed of resistance where the United Nations says more than 130,000 people have been forced from their homes by conflict — over a third of the population.
In December, Lway Zar arrived with her family at a makeshift encampment for the displaced in Pekon township, just a few minutes drive from Moe Bye.
It was the fifth time she had been forced to move since the coup, by fighting, floods — and now military shelling.
“I don’t know how long we can stay here,” she said. “Even if we don’t hear heavy gunfire, we still think that drones and air strikes are always following us.
“Before the coup, our family was poor but we had good living conditions in our own house and we could store rice from our fields,” she told AFP.
“After that, we lost everything in the war. My husband said we used to be human but now we are like dogs.”
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