Myanmar’s military junta may be guilty of war crimes, says UN investigation

Myanmar’s military junta may have committed systematic human rights violations, with many of them amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity since it seized power last year, according to a new United Nations investigation.

The UN human rights report, the first comprehensive probe since the February 1, 2021, coup that ousted the elected civilian government and jailed prominent leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi, records atrocities by security forces who have violently suppressed resistance, at times using air strikes and heavy weapons on heavily populated areas.

The military has shown a flagrant disregard for human life, said Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, pointing to accounts of victims being shot in the head, burned to death, tortured, arrested arbitrarily and used as human shields.

The report found detainees were tortured during interrogation, including suspension from ceilings, electrocution, injection of drugs and some subjected to sexual violence, including rape.

“The appalling breadth and scale of violations of international law suffered by the people of Myanmar demand a firm, unified, and resolute international response,” Ms Bachelet said.

Almost 1,700 people have been killed by the junta since last year, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The UN report describes how many of these deaths have been horrifically cruel, particularly in ethnic borderland areas and the countryside, where the army has met with strong resistance from local militias allied with the ousted parallel “national unity government” (NUG).

The investigation, which was based on interviews with victims and witnesses of abuse and backed up with satellite imagery and other open-source information, found evidence of mass killings by the military across the country.

In the northwest Sagaing region, victims were found dead with their hands and feet tied.  

In one of the most shocking attacks in eastern Kayah State, also known as Karenni, on Christmas Eve in Hpruso Township, junta forces killed at least 40 civilians, including two Save the Children staff.

Some of the bodies were so badly charred they were impossible to autopsy, but others showed victims, including women and teenagers, were gagged and their skulls fractured. Some had been burned alive.

Eyewitness accounts obtained last week by The Telegraph from the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) aid group also back up reports of air attacks, bombings and mortars that have deliberately targeted civilians, causing multiple casualties and prompting hundreds of thousand to flee their homes.

“The situation now is the worst that it has ever been since World War Two, in Karenni and all of Burma,” said Dave Eubank, FBR founder, who barely escaped with his life last week when he and his team were strafed by fighter jets as they tried to help civilians evacuate.

Western governments have imposed broad sanctions on the military and its businesses since the coup, but activists and the NUG have called for more robust international action to restore democracy and protect civilians, including a ban on the sale of jet fuel to the country.

The military did not respond to the UN report but in the past it has denied carrying out atrocities.

The report also said at least 543 people had been killed for their perceived support of the military government.