Plumes of smoke rise after monks among at least 28 dead in alleged Myanmar military attack on monastery

The Burmese military has allegedly attacked a monastery and killed at least 30 civilians sheltering inside as a civil war rages on in war-ravaged Myanmar.Drone footage appears to show explosions erupting at the monastery in Nam Neint village in the country's Shan state on March 11.Anti-junta resistance groups Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) and the Pa-O National Defence Force operating in the area blamed the attack on the Burmese military.The KNDF claimed soldiers had shelled the monastery and ordered 33 civilians - including three Buddhist monks - to come out before shooting them.Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun confirmed the clashes happened, saying the civilians were killed by local People's Defence Forces battling against state troops.A video from the KNDF showed at least 21 bodies, including three in the orange robes worn by Buddhist monks, piled up against the monastery. The bodies had what appeared to be multiple gunshot wounds while the walls of the monastery peppered with bullet holes.Fighting between the armed militias and the Burmese military has intensified amid the political turmoil in Myanmar caused by the ousting of former leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.Several months of protests erupted across Myanmar, also known as Burma, but hundreds of civilians were killed amid forceful crackdowns. The army has since regained control through ongoing intimidation and arrests but the country remains divided and rebel groups clash regularly with state soldiers.Burma, best known from Rudyard Kipling's timeless poem Mandalay, was a highly-regarded British trading outpost geographically positioned next to India, the 'jewel in the crown' of the great empire, until sovereignty was handed back to the inhabitants in 1948.