The EU on Wednesday voiced shock at a deadly air strike on a school in central Myanmar, warning the “perpetrators must be held accountable for this atrocity”.

A Myanmar junta air strike on Monday killed 20 students and two teachers in the village of Oe Htein Kwin in the country’s Sagaing region, according to a school staff member, a local administrator, and other witnesses.

“We are horrified over reports of a massacre in a village school in Sagaing,” EU foreign affairs spokeswoman, Anitta Hipper, said on X.

“Our deepest condolences to the families of the victims, most of them children.”

The strike took place during a purported truce — to ease aid after March’s devastating magnitude-7.7 quake — between the junta, which seized power in 2021, and guerrilla fighters.