At least 29 people, including children, have been killed in an artillery strike on a displaced persons camp in north-east Myanmar, near the Chinese border.
The camp is located in an area controlled by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), an insurgent group fighting the country's ruling junta.
All the victims were civilians, a KIO spokesman told the BBC.
It is one of the deadliest attacks in the junta's decades-long fight against Kachin insurgents.
Kachin officials say the junta has scaled up attacks over the past year because of growing Kachin support for other insurgent groups fighting the military government.
Myanmar has been embroiled in conflict since a 2021 military coup displaced the country's civilian government. The military has increasingly used air strikes against their opponents since seizing power.
The exiled National Unity Government (NUG) has blamed the junta for the attack on the camp, describing it as a "war crime and a crime against humanity".
Junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun denied that the military was behind the attack.
He claimed the army does not have any operations in the area but
said the destruction was "probably" caused by stockpiled explosives.
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Images shared by local media showed bodies being pulled from the rubble and dozens of body bags lying side by side.
The attack late on Monday night happened in the Mong Lai Khet Quarter - some two miles away from the KIA's headquarters in the mountainous town of Laiza
Parts of the camp were destroyed by powerful explosions at around midnight, KIO officials told the BBC.
Footage of the aftermath shows many houses obliterated and large numbers of casualties.
Kachin officials believe at least 11 children are among those killed. Fifty-six more people were also injured in the latest attack, 44 of whom had been taken to hospital for treatment.
The United Nations in Myanmar said it is "deeply concerned" about reports of deaths in the camp.
"IDP camps are places of refuge, and civilians, no matter where they are, should never be a target," it said in a statement on Facebook.
The area around the camp has experienced conflict for decades.
However, locals say that no fighting has taken place near the
camp in recent times.
It is possible the attack was carried out from the air.
Almost exactly one year ago, the Myanmar Air Force used precision-guided bombs to attack an open-air concert at another Kachin base in the night, killing more than eighty people.
Last October, more than 60 people were killed when the military launched airstrikes on Anampa in Kachin State.
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) - the KIO's armed wing - is one of the largest and most powerful insurgent groups in Myanmar. It has been battling the military for decades, even before the 2021 coup.
The military has a double grievance against the KIA, both for its armed clashes with the junta since a ceasefire between the two broke down in 2011, and for its backing of other insurgent groups.
KIA has a long-standing alliance with the Arakan Army based in
Rakhine State and is believed to be supplying weapons to other insurgent
groups in Myanmar.
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