Human rights situation in Myanmar ‘plummets to new low’, UN says

The human rights situation in Myanmar has “plummeted to a new low”, the United Nations has said, citing the “ever-worsening brutal abuse” of the Rohingya minority and the devastating impact of illicit economies, including illegal mining for rare earths.

In a report published on Tuesday, the UN’s Human Rights Office said the quest for control and legitimacy by Myanmar’s military – which seized power in a coup in 2021 – has only deepened the suffering of civilians.

The military has deployed tactics such as “airstrikes, arson attacks, displacement and denial of assistance” against civilians as it battles ethnic armed groups and militias for control of the vast, resource-rich country, the report said.

An estimated 8,075 civilians, including 1,074 children, have been killed since the coup, with at least 1,241 of them in the past year, it said.

The toll is likely higher, the report cautioned, noting that open sources indicate that as many as 15,731 civilians may have been killed since the coup and 3,102 in the last year.

The violence has also resulted in the number of internally displaced people rising to 3.6 million, it said. Some 12.4 million people were facing acute hunger, while 400,000 young children and mothers were suffering from acute malnutrition.

In western Rakhine State, the military and the Arakan Army – a powerful ethnic armed group the military is fighting against – have continued to commit widespread and systematic violations and abuses against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, the UN said.

The continuing violence, which comes nine years after a brutal crackdown that forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee into Bangladesh, has caused renewed displacement.