A bomb blast at a railway station in Myanmar’s Bago region killed three people and injured nine more.
The device exploded at around noon on Monday at the station in Nyaunglebin town.
A 40-year-old man and a woman died on the spot. Another woman died while being treated in a local hospital, according to a local who didn’t want to be named for security reasons.
“It happened on the side of the station where people were waiting for a train,” the man told RFA.
“The man and woman who died at the scene had come to work growing beans in the area. They were on their way home upcountry because they had finished their work.”
The injured are being treated at a hospital in Nyaunglebin.
Soldiers and police officers blocked off the station and searched people, the man added.
The junta-controlled Myanma Alinn Daily newspaper claimed a local People’s Defense Force carried out the attack. It said the junta was still trying to identify and arrest the individuals responsible.
RFA contacted the Bago region People’s Defense Force but they did not respond and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
People’s Defense Forces loyal to the National Unity Government deposed in a Feb.1, 2021 coup have carried out many bombings over the past two years. They often used improvised devices which explode at the wrong time or in the wrong place.
Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said at a meeting of the junta’s National Defense and Security Council on Jan. 31 there have been 8,527 attacks with improvised explosive devices and grenades across the country in the past two years.
For its part, the junta has killed nearly 3,000 civilians and pro-democracy activists since Feb. 2021, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.