Despite the junta declaring a temporary 20-day ceasefire on 2 April 2025, it shelled Lumyan Village in Waingmaw Township, Kachin State with artillery and drones on 3 April.
The junta unilaterally declared a temporary ceasefire to run from 2 to 22 April to facilitate relief efforts following the major earthquake in central Myanmar on 28 March. In response the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) declared a halt to all offensive actions.
At around 8:15 am on 3 April, junta soldiers used artillery and drones to bomb KIA and allied resistance force positions near Lumyan Village, according to a resident of Lumyan Village who spoke to KNG.
He said: “Starting at around 8:15 am, the KIA positions were shelled nonstop all morning, with the attacks coming from Lumyankun Bridge near Mongnar Village [in Waingmaw Township].”
The Buddhist abbot Warshawng Sayadaw, a well-known local religious leader, posted on social media that the junta had shelled continuously for about 15 minutes on the morning of 3 April.
He said that the shelling had caused the monastery to shake and had been more intense than shelling on previous days, before the junta had declared its temporary ceasefire.
Though there has been no fighting in Waingmaw Township in recent days, artillery at the junta army’s Northern Region Military Command headquarters, its Infantry Battalion (IB) 58 base and the junta-aligned Wuyang militia base, all in Waingmaw Township, has continued firing into the township since the ceasefire.
Prior to the ceasefire and the earthquake the junta regularly attacked the territory north of Lumyan Village, which is controlled by the KIA. On the morning of 1 April, the day before the ceasefire supposedly started, the junta used drones to bomb KIA and allied forces positions around Lumyan Village.
Both the junta and KIA said they would retaliate, irrespective of any ceasefires, if they were attacked or provoked. The KIA also pointed out that any ceasefires should also be respected by the junta, not just by ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and resistance forces.
