Myanmar junta at war with own people: UN
Myanmar's junta rulers now see civilians as their adversaries and are making war on the country's people, undermining their ability to live, the United Nations said on Friday.
Two years on from the February 1, 2021, coup the situation is a 'festering catastrophe', said UN human rights chief Volker Turk, adding that the Myanmar military was operating with 'complete impunity'.
In a report examining the two years since the takeover, the UN Human Rights Office said at least 2,940 people had been verified as killed, of which nearly 30% died in detention.
However, the true death toll is likely to be much higher. James Rodehaver, head of the office's team in Myanmar, said the armed forces were now actively fighting on around 13 fronts.
'The military is stretched increasingly thin,' he told a briefing in Geneva, so has relied increasingly on air power and shelling to clear the way for ground forces, with more than 300 airstrikes in the previous year. The report documented deadly air strikes on schools and hospitals.
Nearly 80% of the country's 330 townships have been affected by armed clashes, the report said.
There has never been a time and a situation in which a crisis in Myanmar has reached this far, this wide throughout the country, said Rodehaver.
UN reports indicate that nearly 39,000 houses nationwide have been burned or destroyed in junta operations since February 2022, 'a more than 1,000-fold increase compared to 2021', the UN rights office said.
The Myanmar junta and its affiliates have made 17,572 arrests since the coup, it added. The UN reported that since February 2021, more than 1 million people have been displaced.
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