CHAIRMAN: DR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: DR. KHALID MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

World / Asia

UN probe warns Myanmar violence may worsen, four years since coup

Published: 30 Jan 2025 - 07:47 pm | Last Updated: 30 Jan 2025 - 07:49 pm
People gather around a boat carrying newly-arrived Rohingya refugees, after authorities prevented the refugees from disembarking and ordered them to remain on board the vessel, at Leuge Beach in Indonesia's Aceh province on January 29, 2025. (Photo by Cek MAD / AFP)

People gather around a boat carrying newly-arrived Rohingya refugees, after authorities prevented the refugees from disembarking and ordered them to remain on board the vessel, at Leuge Beach in Indonesia's Aceh province on January 29, 2025. (Photo by Cek MAD / AFP)

AFP

Geneva: UN investigators on Thursday said serious international crimes had been committed in the four years since Myanmar's military coup, warning that the violence would only worsen unless the perpetrators faced justice.

Nicholas Koumjian, head of the United Nations' Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), said impunity was emboldening the perpetrators to commit further violence.

Myanmar's ruling junta seized power in coup on February 1, 2021 that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, ending a 10-year experiment with democracy and plunging the Southeast Asian nation into bloody turmoil and a humanitarian crisis.

"Since then, according to substantial evidence collected and analysed by the IIMM, serious international crimes have been committed across the country," Koumjian said in a statement.

Myanmar has been rocked by fighting between numerous ethnic rebel groups and the army. The civil war has displaced more than 3.5 million people, according to the UN.

"Protests against the military regime were suppressed with often lethal violence. Thousands of perceived opponents have been unlawfully imprisoned, where many have suffered torture, sexual violence and other abuses," said Koumjian.

"Increasingly frequent and indiscriminate air strikes, artillery and drone attacks have killed civilians, driven survivors from their homes, and destroyed hospitals, schools and places of worship."

He said that while most of the evidence collected so far concerned crimes committed by the military, investigators were also probing "disturbing" reports of atrocities committed by other armed groups, including rape, killings and torture.