An escalation of airstrikes on two Magway townships this year has hindered work at small-scale oil wells, which support the local economy and help fund the resistance, and sparked a race to build bomb shelters.
By FRONTIER
On February 25, a regime aircraft dove out of the sky and dropped bombs on a monastery in Magway Region’s Pauk Township where a wedding ceremony was being held. At least 11 attendees were killed and several more were injured.
The attack on the monastery, in the village of Son Kone, was part of a ramped-up airstrike campaign on targets in Pauk and adjacent Myaing Township that started in February.
The two townships are home to a robust concentration of anti-junta People’s Defence Forces, and also harbour a network of small-scale oil enterprises that help finance the resistance.
Although in Pauk, Son Kone village is located near the Kyaukkhwet oil field in Myaing. The wedding’s bride and groom, both of whom survived the airstrike, were reportedly members of the local PDF. Those who died, however, were all civilians, residents told Frontier.
“Villagers have been really afraid of airstrikes since the wedding bombing,” said resident Ko Aung Myint, who asked that his real name not be used for security reasons.
“Our village had never been targeted by an airstrike before. Now people are digging bomb shelters everywhere. Some people are afraid to stay in their homes at night, so they sleep in the nearby forest instead,” he said in a phone interview last month.
The shelter-digging frenzy was not an entirely spontaneous phenomenon. Shortly after the Son Kone airstrike the National Unity Government, a parallel administration established by lawmakers ousted in the 2021 coup, instructed residents of Pauk and Myaing to build bomb shelters for every house.
“Airstrikes are becoming more frequent, so we have ordered every household to dig a bomb shelter,” a spokesperson for the NUG’s Pauk Township Humanitarian and Disaster Management Department told Frontier in March. “Those who don’t comply will be fined.”
Other edicts promulgated by local NUG administrative bodies after the wedding bombing stipulate that celebrations and funerals can only be held with their permission, while residents are advised to carefully vet people arriving from other regions to stay in the area.
Pauk and Myaing residents, with the exception of those serving in resistance forces, were also ordered to stop using Starlink, the satellite internet service owned by United States-based tech billionaire Elon Musk. As in other resistance strongholds, Starlink gained wide use in Magway after the junta cut off internet and phone connections in several of the region’s townships amid the post-coup conflict
Locals explained that resistance groups didn’t want internet users to spread sensitive information that could help the military pick out targets.
“The revolutionary forces think there are informants in the area. That’s why they’ve banned Starlink,” said Ko Kyaw Oo, the owner of an oil well in Kyaukkhwet who spoke to Frontier last month and asked for a pseudonym for his safety.
The bombing campaign continued in the days following the March 28 earthquake, which devastated swathes of Myanmar’s central Dry Zone but appears to have caused little damage in Pauk and Myaing. Airstrikes in these townships have slowed since then and Starlink has been permitted again in some areas, but locals say most of the NUG’s emergency measures remain in place and regime aircraft continue to circle above them.
Drilling on hold
Magway Region, in the western Dry Zone, is an important hub for the regime. It hosts an oil refinery and oil fields operated by companies affiliated with the junta, as well as several Directorate of Defence Industries factories that produce small arms, ammunition, and iron and aluminium for weapons.
However, it’s also a territory where resistance groups have established nascent local administrations, which mostly report to the NUG, and where residents operate small artisan oil wells with makeshift derricks made from metal or bamboo.
The junta began ground attacks on oil fields in Magway and Sagaing in 2022 after swathes of territory in the two regions came under resistance control. In July of that year, more than 300 wells were torched by junta forces in Myaing and Pauk alone. Residents said the wells were targeted because the military suspected the owners of funding PDFs.
But the intensity of the recent air campaign was something new. The spokesperson for the NUG’s humanitarian department for Pauk said in early March that the township had seen over 60 airstrikes so far this year, compared to fewer than 100 all of last year.
Airstrikes, artillery barrages and attacks by small propeller-driven paragliders known as paramotors killed 17 people in February, the spokesperson said. A later update by the department said 15 were killed in March.
One airstrike hit Pauk on March 30, two days after the 7.7 magnitude earthquake, but the effect of that strike was unclear due to communication outages.
In Myaing, meanwhile, airstrikes targeted 10 villages on March 14, killing nine people, according to We Love Myaing, a local news outlet. On March 24 and 26, the military conducted strikes on several villages near the Kyaukkhwet oil field. Four people were injured in the March 24 attack, while the March 26 attack resulted in no casualties.
A post-earthquake airstrike hit Myaing village on April 16, but reportedly caused no deaths or injuries. Frontier has not identified any bombings on Myaing or Pauk since then, but residents remain on edge.
The owners of small oil enterprises in the two townships say their businesses have been the primary target of the airstrikes.
“Planes often fly close to the oil fields,” said Daw Kyi Kyi, who operates oil wells in the Kyaukkhwet and Thayetkan fields, the latter of which is in Pauk. “We have to keep running in and out of our bunkers,” she told Frontier in mid-March, using a pseudonym for protection.
Following airstrikes on six oil-producing villages in Pauk and Myaing on March 3, local NUG officials instructed people to stop drilling new oil wells in the two townships.
“Our drilling rigs are noisy so we’re not allowed to drill new wells because they’re afraid we won’t hear planes approaching,” said a woman who owns several oil wells in the area, speaking to Frontier last month. “We can only extract oil from existing wells. At night we take turns standing guard, and we’ve dug bomb shelters. We have to be careful.”
She said other businesses have also been affected by orders from resistance groups.
“The karaoke lounges and massage parlours near the Kyaukkhwet oil field have closed following orders from the local PDFs. I don’t know when they’ll reopen. Some restaurants are still operating, but if they hear a plane, they must immediately turn off the lights and shut the doors,” she said.
Financing resistance
The campaign against the oil fields coincided with an announcement by the regime in February that it would crack down on businesspeople it accused of illegally exploiting natural resources and supporting what it called “terrorist groups” and “armed insurgents”.
In March 2022, as resistance forces gained control of some oil fields, the NUG’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy issued a statement allowing PDFs and township-level administrations known as People’s Administration Teams to collect taxes on petroleum products.
Kyi Kyi said that when oil production is good, she makes “donations” as requested by the PDFs. “There is no fixed amount,” she said.
Transporting refined oil also requires payment of tolls at two checkpoints operated by the Pauk and Myaing PATs. According to oil business owners, checkpoints charge K8,000 (about US$1.80 at the current market rate) per barrel of refined oil (174 litres per barrel) and around K5,000 per barrel for trucks carrying crude oil.
Under the National League for Democracy government ousted by the military in 2021, the regional administration initially charged K3,000 per barrel for transporting crude oil across the region, rising to K5,000 in 2018, business owners said.
“Taxes have always been paid to successive governments. Now I pay the NUG’s township administration. Since they are a revolutionary organisation, I’m happy to contribute. I don’t think the amount they charge is unreasonable,” said Kyaw Oo.
Refined oil from Pauk and Myaing is transported to areas in neighbouring Sagaing, including Homalin, Shwebo, Kalay and Tamu townships, and also to Rakhine State. It is often used to power generators, with cars instead relying on imported fuel.
“If the price of a barrel of refined oil is around K600,000, it costs about K1.5 million by the time it reaches Homalin,” said Kyaw Oo. “There are many expenses, including tolls and payments to various organisations. By the time it reaches Kalay and Tamu, the price per barrel has risen to around K1.7 to K1.8 million.”
Storing oil also became difficult amid the aerial bombings, prompting traders to buy less and prices to drop. A barrel of crude that fetched around K700,000 in February had fallen to about K500,000 by mid-March. With airstrikes slowing, however, buyers have started returning to the oil fields and the price has gone back up to the earlier rate.
An oil trader in Magway’s Gangaw Township, who had been sourcing crude oil near Son Kone village, said he had stopped trading due to fears of airstrikes.
“Right now, the airstrikes are mainly targeting oil fields, so I don’t dare go there. We’re just monitoring the situation,” he told Frontier in mid-March.
Kyaw Oo said the airstrikes had also forced him to put his business on hold.
“Normally my business generates around K500,000 a day. The workers are also affected. Some have left the oil fields and returned to their hometowns out of fear, even though their employers have not suspended operations,” he said last month.
Oil workers can earn K15,000 to K20,000 per day, but Kyi Kyi said it’s getting difficult to find them.
“Wells that operated before with four workers now have only two,” she said. “Many of them come from different parts of the country. The increasing threat of airstrikes is making their families call on them to go back home.”
Speaking to Frontier on April 22, Kyi Kyi said most of the workers had yet to return.
