Govt receives list of 728 people killed in student movement
The victim’s families are being contacted. The number of injured is 20,263.
An armed Myanmar ethnic group claimed on Thursday it had downed a military helicopter, killing six soldiers onboard in a northern region of the country.
The junta is under increasing military pressure in the north from armed groups, but retains dominance in the sky thanks to its Chinese and Russian built aircraft.
A spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army, which has fought the military for years, told AFP the helicopter had crashed on Wednesday.
"I got confirmation from our ground troops that they shot it down," KIA spokesperson Colonel Naw Bu told AFP. He said six junta soldiers were killed in the incident in Waingmaw township in Kachin state.
The KIA controls swathes of Kachin state in the north of the country. Thousands of people have been displaced in the state since the military ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.
Armed conflict has raged in Myanmar's northern Shan state since October, when an alliance of ethnic minority groups launched an offensive against the military junta.
On Thursday, Beijing voiced "strong dissatisfaction" that fighting in Myanmar had caused Chinese casualties and said it would take "all necessary measures" to protect its citizens, following reports an artillery shell had exploded across the border.
Several Chinese media outlets reported on Wednesday that an artillery shell from Myanmar had fallen across the border in the town of Nansan in China's Yunnan province, where it exploded and caused injuries to multiple people.
On Thursday, Myanmar's junta announced an amnesty for over 9,000 prisoners, part of an annual release to mark the country's Independence Day.
