Sept 11 (Reuters) – Flight operations at the international airport serving Myanmar’s second-largest city have been shut down, according to a major domestic airline, following a drone attack on Thursday by rebels fighting the country’s military in a protracted civil war.
Myanmar Airways International said on its official Facebook page late on Thursday that all international flights to and from Mandalay’s Tada-U International Airport have been temporarily suspended. Domestic flights are being transferred to a nearby airport until further notice for “operational reasons”.
“Flights to Mandalay on September 11 and 12 are cancelled,” an official at Myanmar Airways International’s Bangkok office said on Friday, without giving their name. “The flights are cancelled because the airport closed.”
State-run Global New Light of Myanmar said security forces thwarted an attack by the People’s Defence Force, a pro-democracy militant group, which fired six first-person-view suicide drones at the airport.
“The attack temporarily disrupted some domestic flights. However, no casualties or damage to vehicles or airport runways were reported,” the newspaper said.
Local media reported that resistance forces were targeting military jet fighters at the airport.
Reuters could not independently verify the situation.
Myanmar has been gripped by conflict since the ousting of an elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in a February 2021 coup, sparking a nationwide resistance movement that has evolved into a civil war between the military and an array of armed ethnic groups and pro-democracy militias.
Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s former junta chief, was elected president by a military-backed parliament in April, formalising his grip on power after five years of army rule.
(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Editing by David Stanway)
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