Buddhist devotees light oil lamps at Botataung pagoda during celebrations of the full moon day of Thadingyut, the end of Buddhist Lent, on Monday in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP photo)

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military carried out a paraglider strike on a village that killed at least 24 people including children, and wounded more than 50 others, according to a member of a resistance group, villagers and media reports.

The Monday night attack was carried out by a motorized paraglider, and targeted a village in the central Sagaing region. Celebrations of a Buddhist festival included a rally calling for the release of political prisoners held by Myanmar’s military government, the reports said.

Myanmar is in a civil war that began after the army seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Much of the country, including the village of Bon To where the attack took place, is under the control of resistance forces. The area is about 55 miles west of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.

“The sickening reports emerging from the ground in central Myanmar following a nighttime attack late on Monday should serve as a gruesome wake-up call that civilians in Myanmar need urgent protection,” the human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement.

More than 100 people from Bon To and nearby villages had gathered at the village’s primary school compound Monday evening for an oil lamp lighting ceremony to mark the end of Buddhist Lent and to call for the release of political prisoners including Suu Kyi, said a member of a local resistance group who attended the event.

A motorized paraglider dropped two bombs at about 7:15 p.m., killing an estimated 20 to 40 people, including children, villagers and members of local political activist groups and armed anti-military groups, said the resistance fighter, who spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity to safeguard his personal security. More than 50 others were wounded, including himself, he added.

The resistance fighter said an alert had been issued through a network of mobile phones and walkie-talkies that had tracked the paraglider from the army’s northwestern military command in Monywa, about 16 miles north of Bon To.