Relief groups say 5 die as Myanmar airstrikes hit churches

BANGKOK (AP) — Relief groups say airstrikes by Myanmar’s military on two villages inhabited largely by ethnic Karen have killed five civilians, including a mother and her 2-year-old daughter, and destroyed two churches. Two relief organizations say the dead from the airstrikes Thursday in Karen state also included the pastor of a Baptist church, a Catholic deacon and a church layman. They say another woman and her child were wounded in a second village. Myanmar’s military government has been battling an alliance of ethnic rebels and pro-democracy forces since the army seized power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.