Burmese resistance fighters are now using modified retail drones to drop bombs on military coup rebels as the civil conflict rages on in Myanmar.

Members of the People's Defence Force (PDF), which opposes the ruling military junta which violently seized power in February 2021, have customised the High Street drones to conduct airstrikes on enemy outposts in a bid to match their better-funded and equipped adversaries.

The group's drone units said they had carried out some 642 drone strikes last year in the states of Kayin and Kayah.

Speaking to local media, Boh Lin Yaung, leader of the local defence force Khin-U Support Organization in the Sagaing region, said: 'Drones have lots of advantages, so we started buying them.

'Right now, we are working with small drones used for photography, and therefore can only carry small payloads – around half 24 ounces. The main reason we use them is because it's the safest way for us to engage the enemy.'

The strategy requires little manpower and has seen some success in obtaining air superiority for the PDF. However, the PDF acknowledged that weaponising the drones is expensive, and operations are limited by daylight.

The Burmese military has also responded by deploying defensive technologies such as drone guns and signal jammers.

Two years ago, army chiefs led a violent coup that saw democratically elected Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi removed from office and jailed on charges widely seen as being politically motivated.

Several months of protests erupted across Myanmar, also known as Burma, but hundreds of civilians were killed amid forceful crackdowns. The army has since regained control through ongoing intimidation and arrests but the country remains divided and rebel groups clash regularly with state soldiers.

Burma, best known from Rudyard Kipling's timeless poem Mandalay, was a highly-regarded British trading outpost positioned next to India, the 'jewel in the crown' of the empire.