AFP

A Myanmar toddler has miraculously survived a weekend airstrike that killed his father in their bamboo hut near the coup-hit country's border with Thailand.

The nation has been in turmoil since the military ousted and detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, triggering mass protests demanding a return to democracy.

On Saturday night, the Myanmar military launched the first airstrikes in Karen state in 20 years, hours after a rebel group had seized a military base.

Among the targets hit was the bamboo hut of Saw Ta Eh Ka Lu Moo Taw, almost three years old, who lives in the Day Bu Doh valley with his farmer parents.

"He was sitting on his dad's lap at the time and the shrapnel from the bomb killed his father. (The boy) has lacerations to his neck and has some fragments still in him," David Eubank from the Free Burma Rangers told AFP, saying the father, Saw Aye Lay Htoo, 27, died instantly.

The Christian humanitarian group runs a health clinic in the area and is providing medical treatment to the boy.

Eubank said medics will try to remove the shrapnel pieces with minor surgery.

"(The boy and his mother are) in shock and sorrow. The little boy knows he's got a dead father," he said.

Health workers are concerned the little boy could develop an infection from the metal fragments and are giving him antibiotics.

AFP