The UN human rights head warned on Friday that three years of military rule in Myanmar had caused unspeakable atrocities and left people locked in an endless nightmare as the crisis worsens.
Volker Turk told the UN Human Rights Council that the junta is suppressing all kinds of protest with complete impunity and urged the organization’s highest rights body and member nations to concentrate on stopping more atrocities.
“The human rights situation in Myanmar has morphed into a never-ending nightmare, away from the spotlight of global politics,” Turk said.
“Armed conflict has escalated and spread to nearly every corner of the country. Three years of military rule have inflicted and continue to inflict unbearable levels of suffering and cruelty on people in Myanmar.”
He added that the country’s development was in free slide and that the junta was using “total abuse of power” to crack down on any resistance.
Following a 10-year democratic experiment that ended in deadly unrest and overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in February 2021, the junta came to power.
The People’s Defence Forces, a more recent pro-democracy organization, and long-standing ethnic rebel organizations are posing a challenge to the junta’s authority.
Turk told the council that credible sources had verified that over 4,603 civilians, including 659 women and 490 children, had been killed by the military since February 2021.
“The actual toll is almost certainly much higher,” he noted.
He said around 400 civilians, including 113 women, had been burnt either alive or after being executed.
Turk said the violence had intensified since late October, when ethnic armed groups launched coordinated attacks, triggering punishing retaliation from the military.
He said that in January, 145 out of 232 verified civilian deaths were attributable to air strikes and artillery attacks as the military increasingly directs its jets on towns and cities.
“This is horrific,” said Turk.
“For the last three years, people in Myanmar have sacrificed everything, and kept alive their aspirations for a better and safer future.
“They need the entire international community to support them.”
